Mitchell Goldhar
Owner, SmartCentres
$2.2 B
Mitchell Goldhar convinced Walmart to let him open its first store in Canada in 1994. His Toronto-based firm, SmartCentres, went on to develop more than 200 shopping centers across the country, most of which housed a Walmart. In May 2015, Goldhar sold most of SmartCentre’s assets to SmartREIT (formerly Calloway REIT), for about $880 million in shares, cash and assumed debt. Goldhar is SmartREIT’s largest shareholder and chairs its board. He also owns about 6% of OneREIT (formerly Retrocom REIT). Separately, through Penguin Investments, his private company, Goldhar holds interests in 78 properties in various stages of development across Canada. This includes a stake, along with SmartREIT, in the Vaughan Metropolitan Centre, a 100-acre planned development north of Toronto, where tenants include Walmart and KPMG. Goldhar graduated with a political science degree from York University and teaches urban planning real estate development at the University of Toronto. He owns Israeli soccer team Maccabi Tel Aviv FC and actively plays squash, tennis and hockey. Goldhar has made charitable gifts to Toronto’s Hospital for Sick Children and to fund research on repetitive sports concussions.
Canadian real estate businessman Mitchell Goldhar has an estimated net worth of $1.81 billion as of April 2016 according to Forbes. In the 1990’s, Mitchell Goldhar reportedly visited the owner of Wal-mart stores, Sam Walton, to negotiate on developing Wal-Mart Stores in Canada. Initially, Walton declined Goldhar’s proposal but due to the latter’s tenacity, the former decided to give it a try. Eventually, Goldhar became the de facto developer of Wal-Mart in Canada.
In addition to being a businessman, Mitchell Goldhar is also known for his significant contributions to Brain Campaign for the Canadian Sports Concussion Project which he recently gave $1 billion CAD. It is a research project which seeks to identify the unknowns of repetitive concussions that affected many Canadian athletes.
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