Kenneth Thomson, 82; Media Baron Was Richest Man in Canada

Kenneth Thomson, who became Canada’s richest man by turning a chain of newspapers into one of the world’s biggest distributors of financial data, has died. He was 82.

Thomson died Monday after an apparent heart attack at his office in Toronto, said Jason Stewart, a Thomson Corp. spokesman.

Under Thomson’s leadership, the business evolved into an international electronic information powerhouse with 2005 revenue of $8.7 billion.

The media baron “was a very clever person, and an extremely astute and opportunistic businessman,” said Stephen Jarislowsky, chairman of Montreal-based Jarislowsky Fraser Ltd. and a major Thomson Corp. shareholder.

“When he realized newspapers wouldn’t do as well in the future, he recast the company.”

Thomson was also rated the ninth-wealthiest person in the world this year with an estimated fortune of $19.6 billion, according to Forbes magazine.

After stepping down as company chairman in 2002, he handed the reins to his eldest son, David, who had worked at venerable retailer Hudson’s Bay Co., in which the Thomsons held a stake until 1997.

Kenneth Thomson was the third child and only son of Roy Thomson, the hard-driving creator of a business empire that began in 1930 with a tiny radio station in northern Ontario and grew to embrace Canada’s dominant newspaper group and other interests ranging from North Sea oil to travel agencies and the Times of London.

“Young Ken,” as he was called, took over the empire after his father died in 1976.

By 1996, Thomson Corp. had begun moving out of the newspaper business. Most of the company’s newspapers and other holdings were sold to concentrate on providing specialist information to legal, investment, medical and other professionals, largely in electronic formats.

Thomson Corp. hung on to the Toronto Globe and Mail, which Thomson called “the jewel in the crown” of his empire.

The company’s businesses include Thomson Financial, an electronic provider of financial information, and the legal information company Westlaw.

Thomson Corp., with 40,500 employees, has its operational headquarters in Stamford, Conn., although its formal headquarters remain in Toronto.

At the time of his death Thomson controlled about 70% of Thomson Corp.’s shares.

He was born Sept. 1, 1923, in Toronto. After serving with the Royal Canadian Air Force in World War II, he attended Cambridge University.

The intensely private Thomson had often been described as a shy, shrewd businessman with an aloof nature.

“The chief distinguishing feature of Ken Thomson is that he doesn’t have any chief distinguishing features,” one observer said of him years ago.

An avid art collector, Thomson recently donated about 2,000 pieces valued at $300 million to the Art Gallery of Ontario, including the Peter Paul Rubens masterpiece “The Massacre of the Innocents.”

In addition to his son David, Thomson is survived by his wife, Marilyn, and children Peter and Taylor.