Daryl Katz – Billionaire

Daryl Allan Katz (born May 31, 1961) is a Canadian businessman, investor, and philanthropist. With an estimated net worth of $US 4.14 billion (as of November 2015), Katz was ranked by Forbes as the 12th wealthiest Canadian and 534th in the world. The Edmonton-based Katz is founder and chairman of the Katz Group of Companies, one of Canada’s largest privately owned enterprises, with operations in the pharmacy, sports & entertainment, and real estate development sectors. Katz Group owns the Edmonton Oilers, and is leading the development of Rogers Place arena and the Ice District. Katz is a former lawyer, and resides in Edmonton.

Early life and education

Daryl Katz was born in 1961 in Edmonton, Alberta. His father was a pharmacist who founded Value Drug Mart in Edmonton in the 1970s. Daryl Katz attended the Jewish day school, Talmud Torah School during his elementary years and then graduated from Jasper Place High School. He then attended the University of Alberta, graduating with an arts degree in 1982 and with a law degree in 1985.

Pharmacy business

After school, he worked for a time at the law firm, Shoctor, Mousseau and Starkman, and then started his own practice focusing on corporate and franchise law. In 1991, in a partnership with his father, Katz paid $300,000 for the Canadian rights to the U.S.-based Medicine Shoppe drugstore franchise which had over 1,000 stores in the USA. In 1992, they opened the first Medicine Shoppe store and Katz founded the Katz Group of Companies which was to become the holding company for the group. In 1996, Katz purchased the storied but fading Rexall drugstore chain in Canada which at the time, only consisted of several dozen stores. The business grew and by 1998, the Katz Group consisted of 80 Rexall stores, 30 Medicine Shoppe outlets, and a few smaller independent retailers. In 1997, he purchased the Ontario-based, 143-store Pharma Plus drug store chain from the supermarket operator Oshawa Group for $100 million.

In 1999 he ventured into the U.S. with the purchase of the money-losing, $300 million in sales, Minnesota-based Snyders Drug Store chain; in 2001, he purchased the U.S.-based Drug Emporium big-box discount chain. His foray into the U.S. was not without failure: the Snyder’s chain filed for bankruptcy in 2003 and its 25 stores were sold to Walgreens. In 2004, Katz purchased the naming rights for ten years to the new $45-million Rexall Centre, a 12,500-seat tennis and entertainment complex on the campus of York University. In January 2012, he sold Drug Trading Co. and Medicine Shoppe Canada to the U.S.-based drug distributor McKesson Corporation for $1.2 billion. Katz Group retained its network of approximately 460 corporate-owned 450 Rexall-branded outlets.

Summary

Source:wikipedia