Sask.-born business mogul Pattison all about giving back

As a young boy in Luseland. Sask., Jim Pattison said he was always encouraged to give back.

“We’ve been doing that for a long time,” he told the Brent Loucks Show Thursday morning

And give back he did on Tuesday, with a $50-million donation to The Children’s Hospital Foundation of Saskatchewan. The move is the largest private monetary donation in the province’s history. 

Pattison owns multiple companies including car dealerships, radio stations, and even Ripley’s Believe it or Not, an amusement company that operates more than 100 attractions on five continents.

“I got a call in 1986 from a franchise in Oregon that told me I should buy the company,” Pattison said. “He told me ‘it’s the worst run company he’s ever run across’ so we looked into it and bought it.”

Pattison also owns the Guinness Book of World Records.

He said technology has been one of the few secotrs whose companies haven’t really caught his eye. 

“I’ve been in one or two, but don’t really understand it,” he said. “It’s a fast-moving business that’s coming and affecting everything.”

British Columbia grocery chain Save-on-Foods, another Pattison holding, will open a location July 15 in Saskatoon’s Blairmore area.

“It started in B.C. with two per cent of the market share,” he said. “Now it’s grown to 23 per cent of the food business market share in B.C., we’ve also moved into Alberta and Saskatchewan,” he said.

The company’s first store in the province opened April 2016 in Regina.

Pattison is considered the fourth-richest Canadian by Forbes magazine with a net worth of $7.88 billion.