Shoppers look at products inside Selfridges in the West End shopping district of London, on Nov. 26, 2021. The Weston Family’s holding company, Wittington Investments Ltd. Wittington is looking to redeploy the proceeds of its estimated $6.9-billion sale Selfridges & Co. in 2021, into more innovative opportunities.MAY JAMES/Reuters
The billionaire Weston family is reshaping its personal investment strategy to finance more innovative areas of the global economy, including clean energy, early-stage technology companies and disruptive retail and consumer products companies.
The makeover follows the passing of patriarch W. Galen Weston two years ago.
The Weston family, one of Canada’s wealthiest, is best known as the controlling shareholder of publicly traded grocery giant Loblaw Cos. Ltd. L-T. The company has sharply boosted earnings under the leadership of Mr. Weston’s son Galen G. Weston in recent years, while defending itself, along with other retailers, from consumer criticism over the skyrocketing price of food, which has outpaced inflation.
But the family also owns billions of dollars worth of private assets through its holding company, Wittington Investments Ltd. That vast private portfolio is undergoing an extreme makeover.
Last September, Jane Segal joined Wittington as managing director for fund investments – a role that will see her deploy money to outside private-capital fund managers – following a stint building and leading the external managers program at the Healthcare of Ontario Pension Plan.
This month, Zvi Orvitz joined Wittington as another managing director after building and leading the energy sector unit of Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan’s private-capital division. During his 15 years at Teachers, Mr. Orvitz led private-equity buyouts and growth-equity investments in “energy and power, sustainability and the energy transition,” according to his LinkedIn biography. He has been tasked with leading the family’s investments in companies participating in the energy sector’s green transition.
Wittington is also working with an outside recruiter to hire a third managing director to make private-equity and growth-equity investments in disruptive retail and consumer products companies, a source familiar with the matter said. The Globe and Mail is not identifying the source as they are not authorized to discuss the matter.
The Weston family company has also expanded its support for early-stage technology companies. Wittington started its own in-house venture capital unit in 2019, committing $100-million to tech startups, with one-third of the funding coming from Loblaw.
Wittington Ventures, led by veteran private-capital investor Jim Orlando – previously a partner with OMERS Ventures – has since backed several early-stage companies. They include California-based driverless truck developer Gatik, whose vehicles are being tested by Loblaw, and Canadian startups Qui Identity, an online identity-authentication provider, and Odaia Intelligence Inc., which uses artificial intelligence to help pharmaceutical companies promote drugs to health care practitioners.
Now, Wittington is investing out of a second, $120-million venture-capital fund, which it quietly launched last fall. Loblaw committed half the capital to the new fund, according to the retailer’s public regulatory disclosures.
Wittington has effectively shifted from one luxury (retailers) to another: The ability to hire senior investment professionals from Canada’s pension-fund giants to launch alternative private-capital programs. That gives the Westons the ability and capacity to embark on investing strategies that only Canada’s largest institutional investors can afford to support.
The first signs of a shift in the Weston family’s investment strategy came after Galen G. Weston succeeded his father in September, 2016, as chief executive of George Weston Ltd. (GWL), the publicly traded company controlled by the family through Wittington, which in turn owns a controlling stake in Loblaw and Choice Properties Real Estate Investment Trust.
Wittington invested in health technology startup League Inc. in 2018 and backed the first, US$350-million fund, from Radical Ventures, a Canadian AI-focused venture capital firm. GWL invested in a consumer products-oriented venture capital fund led by Dragons’ Den star Arlene Dickinson in 2016.
But Wittington has stepped up its move into innovative areas of the economy since the passing of W. Galen Weston in April, 2021. The family holding company sold the 18-store Selfridges luxury retail group – which the elder Mr. Weston had built up over decades – late that year to Central Group of Thailand and Austrian real estate company Signa Group. Also in 2021, GWL sold its bakery operations, which had been the foundation of the family business since the 1880s.
The younger Mr. Weston took on the role of president in 2021, and that year recruited senior Bay Street lawyer Cornell Wright,former chair of corporate law with Torys LLP, to succeed long-time family lieutenant Pavi Binning as president of Wittington on Jan. 1, 2022. Loblaw in April said Mr. Weston plans to step back from day-to-day operations as it announced the hiring of European retail executive Per Bank as president and CEO.Mr. Weston will remain chairman of Loblaw, and has said he will remain deeply involved in the company’s strategic direction.
Mr. Wright and Wittington’s new investment leaders join a slew of at least 10 other outsiders who have joined the family holding company in the past two years, including Louise Porthouse, managing director of people and culture and a former vice-president of human resources for Canada with MasterCard; finance vice-president Jackie Yau, who previously held senior accounting roles with Dream Unlimited and Maple Leaf Sports & Entertainment; and several taxation and accounting executives. David Morris, a former chief financial officer of investment firm Gluskin Sheff, joined as CFO of Wittington last year.
NEW YORK (AP) — Shares of Tesla soared Wednesday as investors bet that the electric vehicle maker and its CEO Elon Musk will benefit from Donald Trump’s return to the White House.
Tesla stands to make significant gains under a Trump administration with the threat of diminished subsidies for alternative energy and electric vehicles doing the most harm to smaller competitors. Trump’s plans for extensive tariffs on Chinese imports make it less likely that Chinese EVs will be sold in bulk in the U.S. anytime soon.
“Tesla has the scale and scope that is unmatched,” said Wedbush analyst Dan Ives, in a note to investors. “This dynamic could give Musk and Tesla a clear competitive advantage in a non-EV subsidy environment, coupled by likely higher China tariffs that would continue to push away cheaper Chinese EV players.”
Tesla shares jumped 14.8% Wednesday while shares of rival electric vehicle makers tumbled. Nio, based in Shanghai, fell 5.3%. Shares of electric truck maker Rivian dropped 8.3% and Lucid Group fell 5.3%.
Tesla dominates sales of electric vehicles in the U.S, with 48.9% in market share through the middle of 2024, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration.
Subsidies for clean energy are part of the Inflation Reduction Act, signed into law by President Joe Biden in 2022. It included tax credits for manufacturing, along with tax credits for consumers of electric vehicles.
Musk was one of Trump’s biggest donors, spending at least $119 million mobilizing Trump’s supporters to back the Republican nominee. He also pledged to give away $1 million a day to voters signing a petition for his political action committee.
In some ways, it has been a rocky year for Tesla, with sales and profit declining through the first half of the year. Profit did rise 17.3% in the third quarter.
The U.S. opened an investigation into the company’s “Full Self-Driving” system after reports of crashes in low-visibility conditions, including one that killed a pedestrian. The investigation covers roughly 2.4 million Teslas from the 2016 through 2024 model years.
And investors sent company shares tumbling last month after Tesla unveiled its long-awaited robotaxi at a Hollywood studio Thursday night, seeing not much progress at Tesla on autonomous vehicles while other companies have been making notable progress.
TORONTO – Canada’s main stock index was up more than 100 points in late-morning trading, helped by strength in base metal and utility stocks, while U.S. stock markets were mixed.
The S&P/TSX composite index was up 103.40 points at 24,542.48.
In New York, the Dow Jones industrial average was up 192.31 points at 42,932.73. The S&P 500 index was up 7.14 points at 5,822.40, while the Nasdaq composite was down 9.03 points at 18,306.56.
The Canadian dollar traded for 72.61 cents US compared with 72.44 cents US on Tuesday.
The November crude oil contract was down 71 cents at US$69.87 per barrel and the November natural gas contract was down eight cents at US$2.42 per mmBTU.
The December gold contract was up US$7.20 at US$2,686.10 an ounce and the December copper contract was up a penny at US$4.35 a pound.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Oct. 16, 2024.
TORONTO – Canada’s main stock index was up more than 200 points in late-morning trading, while U.S. stock markets were also headed higher.
The S&P/TSX composite index was up 205.86 points at 24,508.12.
In New York, the Dow Jones industrial average was up 336.62 points at 42,790.74. The S&P 500 index was up 34.19 points at 5,814.24, while the Nasdaq composite was up 60.27 points at 18.342.32.
The Canadian dollar traded for 72.61 cents US compared with 72.71 cents US on Thursday.
The November crude oil contract was down 15 cents at US$75.70 per barrel and the November natural gas contract was down two cents at US$2.65 per mmBTU.
The December gold contract was down US$29.60 at US$2,668.90 an ounce and the December copper contract was up four cents at US$4.47 a pound.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Oct. 11, 2024.
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