David Thomson Popular Books

David Thomson Biography & Facts

David Kenneth Roy Thomson, 3rd Baron Thomson of Fleet (born 12 June 1957), is a Canadian/British hereditary peer and media magnate. Upon the death of his father in 2006, Thomson became the chairman of Thomson Corporation and also inherited his father's British title, Baron Thomson of Fleet. After the acquisition of Reuters in 2008, Thomson became the chairman of the merged entity, Thomson Reuters. As of January 2024, Thomson is the richest person in Canada and 21st richest in the world, with an estimated net worth of $61.3 billion USD. Early life and education He was born on June 12, 1957 in Toronto, Ontario, the eldest child of Kenneth Thomson, 2nd Baron Thomson of Fleet, and his wife, Marilyn Lavis. He has a sister named Taylor Thomson, and his brother, Peter Thomson, is a race car driver. In 1978, Thomson received his Bachelor of Arts (subsequently upgraded to an MA (Cantab)) at Selwyn College, Cambridge, where he studied History. As a child, he attended both Upper Canada College and the Hall School. Business career Thomson started his business career as a junior associate at McLeod Young Weir in Toronto. He left the firm to enter the family business, working in a number of positions in companies controlled by the Thomson family. Thomson was manager of The Bay store at Cloverdale Mall in Etobicoke, and president of Zellers. In an effort to develop his independence, Thomson founded the real estate firm Osmington Incorporated, owned and operated outside of the Thomson empire. Osmington acquires and manages commercial real estate assets on behalf of institutional shareholders, such as the Thomson empire. In 2010, Osmington sold its stake in eight retail properties to the Canada Pension Plan for $336 million. Osmington is a major investor in FarmersEdge, a precision agriculture company. Osmington is also a partner in True North Sports and Entertainment, owners of the National Hockey League's Winnipeg Jets and the Canada Life Centre in downtown Winnipeg, Manitoba. Osmington is redeveloping the retail space of Toronto's Union Station. In 2023, Osmington revealed that it was bringing the fast food chain Shake Shack to Canada with plans for 35 outlets. Thomson's investment activities are managed through Toronto hedge fund Morgan Bay Capital. According to a plan devised decades ago by Thomson Corporation founder Roy Thomson, when Kenneth Thomson died (in June 2006), control of the family fortune passed on to David: "David, my grandson, will have to take his part in the running of the Organisation and David's son, too," Roy Thomson wrote in his 1975 autobiography. "With the fortune that we will leave to them go also responsibilities. These Thomson boys that come after Ken are not going to be able, even if they want to, to shrug off these responsibilities." Following Thomson Reuters' sale of a controlling stake in its financial business in 2018, Thomson expressed frustrations working in the family business. He is currently engaged in discussions with family members to leave the family business, Thomson Reuters, to focus on his own art and real estate activities. Art collection Thomson is a noted art collector and owns works by Rembrandt, J. M. W. Turner, Paul Klee, Hammershoi, Edvard Munch, Patrick Heron, Joseph Beuys, E. L. Kirchner, and Egon Schiele. Thomson owns the world's largest collection of paintings and drawings by the English painter John Constable. In an interview with Geraldine Norman in The Independent in 1994, Thomson said he bought his first Constable drawing at 19, giving the seller "an oil painting in exchange and quite a lot of money". Norman described him as a "fanatical collector", and Thomson described how he "fell in love" with Constable's style as a young child. In his twenties, Thomson stunned the art world with two monumental purchases. In 1984, he acquired J. M. W. Turner's spectacular 'Seascape: Folkestone", for a record £7.3 million (£21.8 million in 2017) from the sale of the collection of noted British art historian Kenneth Clark, Lord Clark. The following year, Thomson, 27, broke another world record when he bought Rembrandt's monumental "Christ Presented to the People", from 1655, for a record £561,000 (£1.7 million in 2017) at Christie's London, when the Duke of Devonshire sold the Chatsworth Collection in one of the largest auctions of the time. Thomson sold both masterpieces within a few years during the 1980s financial crisis. In 2002, Thomson and his father paid a world record price of $76.7 million to acquire Rubens' "Massacre of the Innocents", now the centrepiece of the Thomson Collection at the Art Gallery of Ontario. In 2012, Thomson shattered records buying a painting by Danish artist Vilhelm Hammershøi, "Ida Reading a Letter", paying the highest price ever for a Danish artist. In 2012, Thomson broke the record for the most expensive 18th-century British watercolour when he paid £2.4 million for a small landscape by John Robert Cozens. Thomson has donated upwards of $276 million to the Art Gallery of Ontario's renovation costs, in addition to creating a permanent endowment with an additional $20 million donation. Thomson is an active acquirer of Canadian art. In 2007, Thomson paid $1.8 million for a face mask, the highest price ever paid for a single piece of Native North American art. And in November 2016 he paid a record C$11.2 million to buy a painting at auction by Group of Seven artist Lawren Harris entitled "Mountain Forms". Thomson operates his collecting activities through his personal Thomson Works of Art. Thomson also funds the Archive of Modern Conflict, based in London. Specialists within the archive purchase photography collections worldwide and also run a book-publishing arm, AMC Books, which has a Canadian imprint, Bone Idle Books, based in Toronto. Personal life Thomson is the father of seven children from four different mothers. With his first wife, Mary Lou La Prairie, he has two daughters: Thyra Nicole and Tessa Lys. With his second wife, Laurie Ludwick, Thomson has one son, Benjamin, born after Thomson left the marriage. With the actress Kelly Rowan, Thomson has a daughter, Braelyn, also born after Thomson left the relationship. With his partner Severine Nackers, a former employee of Sotheby's, Thomson has three daughters, Ottilie, born in 2015, Elodie, born in 2018, and Idalie, born in 2021. His three youngest children live in Toronto with their father and mother. Thomson was estranged from his eldest daughter, Thyra, for five years, with Thyra eventually suing her father over mismanagement of the family trusts. The case was settled out of court in 2017. One daughter lives in Victoria, British Columbia, and two others live in the United Kingdom. In Toronto, Thomson has expanded his home in the Rosedale neighbourhood to house his expanding art collection, first purchasing the home of Toronto architect Raymond Moriyama. Thomson is a patron of the Art Gallery of Ontario. Upon the death of.... Discover the David Thomson popular books. Find the top 100 most popular David Thomson books.