Billionaire Ken Thomson Dies

 Not that you would have known it by simply observing Ken Thomson.

 The man who owned a large number of newspapers, broadcast outlets and other properties around the globe died Monday. He was 82 years old.

 The media mogul went just where you’d expect —   sitting in his office at the Thomson Corporation in the Toronto Dominion Tower.

 He was familiar with the trappings of wealth, but rarely displayed them, remaining mostly down to earth despite his phenomenal success. His estimated worth was in the billions.

 “I know you shouldn’t get too excited about material things, and generally speaking I’m not,” he once noted.

 He used his wealth to feed his favourite cause, the world of art, generously donating millions of dollars in money and works to museums, including the A.G.O. He gave that gallery $50 million to get its transformation project underway four years ago, and then added a $20 million endowment.

 He also loaned out thousands of items from his own collection, a practice that briefly brought him into the spotlight in 2004, when four of his ivory carvings worth a cool $1.5 million were stolen.

When they were returned within two weeks, he linked the artwork to another great love: his pet dogs.

“I only have one dog and five ivories on my bed tonight,” he joked at the time.

Those who knew him recall the man of riches as a contradiction in terms. “I kept running into him in the most eclectic of places, whether it was walking his dogs in the middle of the night down a dark section of the railway tracks or just three weeks ago at the Golden Griddle,” marvels security analyst Brendan Caldwell.

Thomson’s company, built up by his father Roy from a single radio station, boasts more than 40,000 employees worldwide.

“He was a remarkable man who did so much to build this business by constantly investing in the future,” states Richard Harrington, CEO of Thomson Corp.

“He was a strong leader whose energy and enthusiasm for Thomson was contagious. Anyone who met Ken was touched by his grace, charm and humility.”

Thomson Corp.’s international holdings at one point included the Times of London and North Sea oilfields – profits from the latter allowed Thomson to buy 76 per cent of Hudson’s Bay Co. in 1979 and FP Publications, parent of the Globe and Mail and several community newspapers, a year later.

As chairman, Thomson opted to purge the company of its newspapers in the 1990s, instead focusing on the highly profitable venture of providing online data to businesses.

Author Peter C. Newman, who interviewed the mogul for a 1991 book, believed Thomson – for all his success – wasn’t a career-minded person.

“That’s the strange part of it,” Newman wrote. “He’s not a very happy man. He doesn’t enjoy life, with the exception of his art.”

Thomson’s father Roy became a British peer and passed along the title Lord Thomson of Fleet upon his death.

However Ken Thomson didn’t use the title in Canada, where he lived in a Toronto mansion with his wife Marilyn. He even made fun of the status in a 1980 interview for Saturday Night magazine.

“I lead a schizophrenic existence almost to a humorous extent,” he said. “In London, I’m Lord Thomson, in Toronto I’m Ken. …”

His passing brought immediate reaction from the rich and not so-rich and famous.

“I was saddened to hear of the death of Ken Thomson,” Premier Dalton McGuinty states. “But let me say that Ontario and Ontarians are the better for his presence here. And we owe him much, both in materials of his leadership that he brought to his business, and for his tremendous devotion to arts and culture in our province.”

“Ken Thomson was a friend, one of the greatest business men in the world, an art collector of unimaginable proportions,” adds fellow media mogul Ted Rogers.

 The Mayor was grateful for the publisher’s contributions to the art world. “Mr. Thomson’s contributions to the City of Toronto both personally and professionally will not be forgotten,” David Miller says in a statement. “Of particular note is his private collection of Canadian art that continues to be a tremendous asset to the Art Gallery of Ontario.”

Thomson is survived by his wife, Marilyn, their three children and their families. Funeral arrangements are pending.

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