Stephen A. Jarislowsky, CC GOQ (born September 9, 1925) is a Canadian business magnate, investor, and philanthropist. He is the Founder, Chairman and CEO of Jarislowsky Fraser Limited, which he built into one of the largest and most successful investment management firms in Canada, with over C$40 billion in assets under management.
His personal wealth was estimated at $1.2 billion in March 2016, making him the 30th richest person in Canada.
Biography
Jarislowsky was born in Berlin, Germany, the son of Kaethe (née Gassmann) and Alfred Jarislowsky. He is the stepson of a steel mill owner in Germany, who was ousted by the Nazis for harbouring Jews.[citation needed] Jarislowsky emigrated to the United States in 1941 after boarding schools in the Netherlands and France. He came of age and was deeply affected by the Great Depression. In Asheville, North Carolina, he attended the college preparatory school, Asheville School, and then studied mechanical engineering for two years at Cornell University. With the US entry into World War II, he served in the US Army. He finished basic training and studied Japanese at the University of Chicago before serving in counter-intelligence in Japan after the war.
He returned to the University of Chicago in 1946 and graduated with an MA in Asian Studies and Phi Beta Kappa Honours. This was followed by a Masters in Business Administration from Harvard Business School in 1949. For the next three years, he worked as an engineer for Alcan Aluminum in Montreal. He briefly returned to the United States, but by June 1955 he returned to Montreal where he started Jarislowsky, Fraser & Company Limited.
In 2007, Jarislowsky’s firm, which owns 18 percent of the shares of Canfor, was embroiled in a bitter proxy fight with Vancouver-based tycoon Jim Pattison, who owns 25 percent of the company. Pattison won and ousted CEO Jim Shepherd over Canfor’s poor performance and declining share price, replacing him for the interim with Jim Shepard.
In several magazine and newspaper articles between 2002 and 2004, Jarislowsky correctly predicted the deep economic recession which began in 2008 in the United States and spread around the world. On December 16, 2008, in an interview on CBC’s The Current, he opined that the current recession would last at least two to five years and may last much longer if corrective measures are not taken by governments and the general public. He further argued that inflation is the only solution in the circumstances to reducing the enormous debt loads held at all levels of society and that massive and immediate government spending is also needed to stimulate the economy.
Summary
| Stephen Jarislowsky | |
|---|---|
| Born | September 9, 1925 Berlin, Germany |
| Residence | Montreal, Quebec, Canada |
| Citizenship | Canadian |
| Alma mater | Cornell University Harvard Business School |
| Occupation | Founder, Chairman & CEO of Jarislowsky Fraser Ltd. |
| Net worth |  US$1.2 billion (February 2015) |
| Spouse(s) | Married |
| Children | 4 |
Stephen Jarislowsky is a Canadian financier, businessman and philanthropist, with an estimated net worth of $1.36 billion as of April 2016 according to Forbes. He is also the 22nd richest person in Canada and 804th on the world billionaires list. Stephen A. Jarislowsky was born in Berlin, Germany in September 1925. He earned his estimated net worth of $1.6 billion as the Founder, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Jarislowsky Fraser Ltd. The firm is considered as one of the largest and most successful investment management firms in Canada, with more than $39 billion in assets under management.
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