Canadian businessman George Cohon, who founded McDonald’s Canada and helped open the fast-food company’s first franchise in the Soviet Union, has died, his family said on social media. He was 86.
“Last night we said farewell to my dad,” Mark Cohon, a former CFL commissioner, wrote Saturday on X, the social media platform formerly known as Twitter.
“Our family, Canada and the world lost a remarkable man.”
Cohon was born in Chicago in 1937 and moved to Toronto in the 1960s. In 1968, he opened the first McDonald’s location in Canada, in London, Ont.
He also founded Ronald McDonald House Charities Canada in the 1980s, a non-profit organization that provides travel and temporary accommodations for families with seriously ill children. Cohon’s work with the organization helped him become a member of the Order of Canada in 1988, and he was later promoted to a companion of the Order of Canada in 2020.
Cohon cuts a cake with children at a McDonald’s restaraunt in Moscow’s Pushkin Square in January 2000, to celebrate the location’s 10th anniversary. (Alexander Nemenov/AFP/Getty Images)
Cohon “was an accomplished businessman who never stopped giving back, and who dedicated himself to lifting others up,” Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said Saturday on X.
“Our families’ paths crossed multiple times over the years, and his passion for serving — and supporting — others was always evident.”
To Russia with fries
In the late 1980s, Cohon was charged with expanding McDonald’s into the Soviet Union. He found a system that was years behind North America’s, and the company couldn’t find reliable suppliers of power or gravel for construction, let alone beef and potatoes.
“In Moscow, we had explored all sorts of meat plants and dairies and bakeries and found that they weren’t up to our standards,” Cohon wrote in his 1997 autobiography, To Russia with Fries, whose proceeds from sales went to Ronald McDonald House. “The simplest things became logistical headaches.”
The company built a $40-million “McComplex” food-processing plant and invested in farmers’ equipment, irrigation, soil and transportation networks. The investments helped modernize Russia’s production system.
The first location opened in Moscow on Jan. 31, 1990, and locals began lining up near Pushkin Square as early as 4 a.m. Cohon used appropriately gigantic scissors to cut the ribbon.
Cohon, left, cuts the ribbon to open a McDonald’s location in Moscow in January 1990. (CBC Archives/The National)
At the end of the day, 30,000 new customers had passed through the doors — to mixed reviews — and the restaurant had set a McDonald’s record for most customers served on an opening day.
The unequivocal success of the first day of his new venture brought out the poet in Cohon, who supposed that Russian writer Alexander Pushkin might have written a poem praising the availability of “meat, bread, potatoes and milk — of the highest quality.”
The restaurant, along with all McDonald’s locations in Russia, closed in March 2022. According to the Reuters news agency, the company pulled out of the country in response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
George Cohon, fast food and Moscow
Featured VideoThe McDonald’s Canada founder cut the ribbon at what was to become the first of many of the fast-food restaurants in the Soviet country.
TORONTO – Restaurant Brands International Inc. reported net income of US$357 million for its third quarter, down from US$364 million in the same quarter last year.
The company, which keeps its books in U.S. dollars, says its profit amounted to 79 cents US per diluted share for the quarter ended Sept. 30 compared with 79 cents US per diluted share a year earlier.
Revenue for the parent company of Tim Hortons, Burger King, Popeyes and Firehouse Subs, totalled US$2.29 billion, up from US$1.84 billion in the same quarter last year.
Consolidated comparable sales were up 0.3 per cent.
On an adjusted basis, Restaurant Brands says it earned 93 cents US per diluted share in its latest quarter, up from an adjusted profit of 90 cents US per diluted share a year earlier.
The average analyst estimate had been for a profit of 95 cents US per share, according to LSEG Data & Analytics.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 5, 2024.
ST. JOHN’S, N.L. – Fortis Inc. reported a third-quarter profit of $420 million, up from $394 million in the same quarter last year.
The electric and gas utility says the profit amounted to 85 cents per share for the quarter ended Sept. 30, up from 81 cents per share a year earlier.
Fortis says the increase was driven by rate base growth across its utilities, and strong earnings in Arizona largely reflecting new customer rates at Tucson Electric Power.
Revenue in the quarter totalled $2.77 billion, up from $2.72 billion in the same quarter last year.
On an adjusted basis, Fortis says it earned 85 cents per share in its latest quarter, up from an adjusted profit of 84 cents per share in the third quarter of 2023.
The average analyst estimate had been for a profit of 82 cents per share, according to LSEG Data & Analytics.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 5, 2024.
TORONTO – Thomson Reuters reported its third-quarter profit fell compared with a year ago as its revenue rose eight per cent.
The company, which keeps its books in U.S. dollars, says it earned US$301 million or 67 cents US per diluted share for the quarter ended Sept. 30. The result compared with a profit of US$367 million or 80 cents US per diluted share in the same quarter a year earlier.
Revenue for the quarter totalled US$1.72 billion, up from US$1.59 billion a year earlier.
In its outlook, Thomson Reuters says it now expects organic revenue growth of 7.0 per cent for its full year, up from earlier expectations for growth of 6.5 per cent.
On an adjusted basis, Thomson Reuters says it earned 80 cents US per share in its latest quarter, down from an adjusted profit of 82 cents US per share in the same quarter last year.
The average analyst estimate had been for a profit of 76 cents US per share, according to LSEG Data & Analytics.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 5, 2024.
