Jim Leech Jacquie Mcnish Popular Books

Jim Leech Jacquie Mcnish Biography & Facts

James William (Jim) Leech (born June 12, 1947) is a Canadian business executive. Since 2021, he has been chancellor-emeritus of Queen's University in Kingston, Ontario, Canada. From 2014 to 2021, he was the 14th Chancellor of Queen's University. Prior to that, he spent 12 years at the Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan (OTPP), first for 6 years as a senior vice-president of OTPP head of Teachers' Private Capital, OTPP's private investment arm, and then as president and chief executive officer of the pension plan until his retirement in 2013. Early life, education and military service Born in Saint Boniface, Winnipeg into a military family, where his father, George Leech, and uncle, Don Laubman, were senior regular force career officers in the Canadian Armed Forces, During his elementary and secondary school years, Leech moved around Canada living in Ottawa, Kingston as well as Canadian army bases , including CFB Kingston and Camp Petawawa, both in Ontario, and CFB Edmonton, Alberta. He graduated from Queen Elizabeth High School (Edmonton) in 1964. Leech attended Royal Roads Military College, whose 2-year program bridged with a 4-year degree at Royal Military College of Canada, where he majored in mathematics and physics and obtained his Bachelor of Science in 1968. He joined the Royal Canadian Corps of Signals after graduation and was posted first at the 1er Batailion Royal 22e Régiment (1R22eR), and then at the 4 Canadian Mechanized Brigade Group Headquarters and Signal Squadron for the North Atlantic Treaty Organization forces in Werl and Soest, respectively, in then-West Germany. He was promoted to captain at the age of 22 and returned to the 1R22eR Regiment in Lahr, West Germany as Signals Officer. He resigned from military service in 1971, and enrolled in Master of Business Administration program at Queen's University, where his father was working as a registrar after his retirement from the military. Leech earned his MBA two years later. Leech is a graduate of the Institute of Corporate Directors (ICD) in 2004. Early career After graduating from MBA, Leech joined the Montreal-based financial and real estate firm Commerce Capital Corporation and held senior executive positions in Montreal, Calgary and Toronto until the company's sale to Eaton/Bay Financial Services. In 1979, through founder George Mann, Leech joined Unicorp Canada Corporation, one of the first public merchant banks in the country, becoming its president in 1983 by which time Unicorp had built a large US commercial real estate portfolio through the acquisition of US Real Estate Investment Trusts. He led the first major hostile takeover in Canada in 1985, gaining control of Union Enterprises Ltd., the parent company of Union Gas, a Southern Ontario natural gas utility company. He became the president and CEO of Union Energy after the acquisition which became one of the largest integrated energy companies in North America. Subsequently, Unicorp acquired Lincoln Savings Bank, a savings bank in New York, but the deal resulted in Unicorp's US subsidiary losing almost USD$100 million. In 1992, Vancouver-based Westcoast Energy Inc. (now Westcoast Transmission Co.) purchased Union Energy and Leech ended his relationship with the company. Unicorp subsequently changed its name to Wilmington Capital Management Inc. Leech next joined Disys Ltd. in 1993 as president and CEO., beginning his career into the technology sector. The main business of Disys was manufacturing smoke alarms, but it also had research in Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) technology, which Leech thought would be funded by the mature smoke-alarm business. To effect this plan, he sold the smoke alarm business and merged Disys and the RFID into Kasten Chase Applied Research Ltd, which Leech moved to as vice-chairman in 1996. In 1999, Leech joined Infocast Corp., an application service provider start-up based in Toronto. He left in 2001. Career at Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan Initially planning to retire, Leech accepted an offer in 2001 from Claude Lamoureux, then-president and CEO of the Ontario Teachers' Pension Plan (OTPP), to become the senior vice-president of OTPP and lead the Teachers' Private Capital (TPC) (then named Teachers' Merchant Bank), OTPP's private investment arm. At that time, OTPP was about to change its way of investing, from holding only minority investment positions in publicly-listed companies and bonds to also buying control of private companies. Under Leech's leadership, Teachers' Private Capital and OTPP completed numerous large and high-profile transactions: In 2002, TPC teamed up with the private equity firm KKR and acquired Yellow Pages Group from BCE for $3 billion in 2002. Yellow Pages was converted into an income trust and listed on the Toronto Stock Exchange one year later. In 2003, a restructuring of the Maple Leaf Sports & Entertainment (MLSE), which owns Toronto Maple Leafs of the National Hockey League, Toronto Raptors of the National Basketball Association and Scotiabank Arena (then named Air Canada Centre) saw OTPP became the owner of the company, increasing its stake from 49% to 58.4%. Leech oversaw this transition from longtime owner Steve Stavro. In 2005, MLSE paid USD$10 million for a new team in the Major League Soccer, later named Toronto FC. OTPP sold MLSE to BCE Inc. and Rogers Communications in 2012 for CAD$1.32 billion. In 2006, TPC purchased of GCT Global Container Terminals Inc. from Orient Overseas (International) Limited for US$2.4 billion in 2006. GCT operates four North American container ports, two in the Port of New York and New Jersey area and two in Port Metro Vancouver. OTPP sold most of its stake in GCT in 2018, forming a management partnership with the Australian-based IFM Investors and British Columbia Investment Management Corporation, a Crown corporation in Canada. In 2007, under Leech's leadership, Teachers' Private Capital, together with Providence Equity Partners and Madison Dearborn, started a bidding war for BCE Inc., fighting against Canada Pension Plan Investment Board, which teamed up with KKR. Owning 5.3% of shares, OTPP was the largest shareholder of BCE at the time. The final bid totalled CAD$51.7 billion, which included CAD$34 billion in debt and split into CAD$34.8 billion for stock and CAD$16.9 billion for liabilities, making it the largest leveraged buyout in history. As the 2007–2008 financial crisis unfolded, uncertainty regarding the debt financing grew. The deal also faced legal challenges from BCE bondholders which were eventually dismissed. The buyout eventually collapsed a year later, as KPMG, concluded that debt load would make the company resulting from the transaction insolvent, which had been a condition of the transaction. In September 2007, OTPP announced the appointment of Leech as its new president and CEO, succeeding Claude Lamoureux, who was retiring and has been leading OTPP since 1990. He started his new role on December 1, 20.... Discover the Jim Leech Jacquie Mcnish popular books. Find the top 100 most popular Jim Leech Jacquie Mcnish books.