Clockwise from left: Lee-Chin with Nelson Mandela, Bill Clinton and investor Warren Buffet, an early influence. Photos courtesy of Michael Lee-Chin.
much larger: the Berkshire Group, a diversified cluster of financial services companies named in honour of Warren Buffet’s Berkshire Hathaway organization. In 1990, he had $8 million of investments under management. A mere eight years later, that figure was nearly $8 billion. kimming a list of lee-chin’s accomplishments,
one might conclude that his career has been an unbroken series of triumphs. But there were plenty of challenges along the way, and when asked about his successes, he often winds up discussing setbacks instead. He nearly lost everything in the recession of the late 1980s, and a decade later the mutual funds he ran went out of fashion as his investments in banks and wealth management companies began to seem passé amid the dot-com craziness. The Globe and Mail published a damning article predicting his demise, but Lee-Chin hung on, and a few months later the tech bubble imploded — proving that he’d been right to stay on the sidelines. Lee-Chin had his ups and downs in the 2000s too, but on the whole it was a time of success and consolidation. In the immediate aftermath of the dot-com crash, the solid, cash-generating businesses he specialized in skyrocketed in value, his fortunes with them. Back on his feet, he renewed his philanthropic work. In 2001, he made a high-profile donation to
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McMaster for the establishment of the AIC Institute of Strategic Business Studies at the Degroote School of Business. That year, he also joined the board of the Royal Ontario Museum foundation, preparing the way for his $30-million donation for the museum’s expansion in 2003. Hilary Weston, whose family had once employed Lee-Chin as a ship’s bellboy, recently told journalist Madeline Stephenson how she convinced him to donate to the ROM expansion. “You belong to a new generation of people who came from different parts of the world to settle in Canada, and you have had great success,” Weston said. “You are an iconic figure and an example for future generations. My family represents history, but your family is about the future of Canada.” Lee-Chin was also active on the business front during this period, and made several new investments in the Caribbean, culminating in the purchase of 75 per cent of the National Commercial Bank of Jamaica — the country’s largest financial institution — from the government. He signed the cheque at the offices of the Minister of Finance of Jamaica, on March 19, 2002. “My family was there, my mom, my siblings, my dad,” he says. “And just before writing the cheque I asked myself, how can the son of an orphan now be writing a cheque to take over this bank? In less than a lifetime, how is it possible?” It’s a good question, and on the one hand, it’s clear that Lee-Chin’s success — his ability to “do well”