Don Butler was looking to quit his Ph.D in political science when a business contact introduced him to Peter Thomson, a member of the dynasty behind Thomson Reuters Corp. and one of the world’s biggest fortunes.
That connection led to the Canadian billionaire hiring the former banker to ramp up his Silicon Valley assets and diversify his fortune away from his family’s namesake media empire, with Thomson becoming a prolific backer of North American startups across finance, cybersecurity and marketing.
Butler, 54, manages about US$500 million of Thomson’s fortune, which is valued at US$8.8 billion, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index. Thomson is the grandson of Roy Thomson, known as the first Baron Thomson of Fleet by the time he died in 1976 at 82. The family has a fortune valued at about US$63 billion, according to the Bloomberg index tracking the world’s 500 richest people.
Peter Thomson’s decades of venture investing show how he -- like many other global billionaires -- has parlayed the proceeds of his family fortune into scores of other businesses and sectors. Thomvest’s real estate arm in Dallas oversees a portfolio of homes in the US and Canada, while its asset-management division in Toronto has investments in private equity funds. Thomson also owns a motor rally team bearing his name and has competed in the sport himself.
Those sales are helping return cash to Canada’s richest clan. The family’s holding company has received more than US$6 billion in dividends over the past decade, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.
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