Archived Profile: Frank Giustra
Doug Ward, Vancouver Sun
Published: Thursday, June 21, 2007VANCOUVER - Frank Giustra, a super-rich Vancouver mining and movie mogul with a midas touch, has used his wealth to become a friend of Bill -- Bill being former U.S. President Bill Clinton.
As such, Giustra has placed his private jet at Clinton's disposal, flying with the former president on trips to Asia and Africa during the past two years.
The former Howe Street wunderkind is a member of the board of trustees of the Clinton Foundation, the charitable and activist vehicle established by Clinton during his post-presidency.
Giustra organized a recent 60th birthday bash for Clinton at Toronto's Fairmont Royal York, which raised $21 million for the Clinton Foundation.
Clinton spoke in Victoria and Kelowna Friday. Whether Giustra had any role in Clinton's visit here is unknown. Giustra has preferred to fly under the media's radar and declined an interview request for this story.
Giustra, the son of a Sudbury nickel miner, was CEO of Yorkton Securities in the '90s, founder of Lions Gate Entertainment and now chair of Endeavour Financial, a merchant banking firm which finances mining companies.
Giustra is also a director of the International Crisis Group (Crisis Group), an independent, non-profit, non-governmental organization, established to prevent and resolve conflicts.
Last month Giustra was one of four chairs of the 2006 Global Leadership Awards dinner in New York where Clinton was honoured along with out-going UN Secretary General Kofi Annan.
Giustra's special relationship with Clinton and his philanthropic efforts was noted by journalists who accompanied Clinton this summer on a tour of Africa.
David Remnick, editor of The New Yorker, wrote a lengthy profile of Clinton in the magazine's Sept. 18 issue.
Remnick described a government leaders forum sponsored by Microsoft that was held in a hotel ballroom in Capetown, South Africa. Clinton sat with Microsoft founder Bill Gates and a variety of sub-Saharan heads of state.
"Several tables away, I was talking to Frank Giustra, a mining financier based in Vancouver, who started, ran, and sold Lionsgate Films. Giustra is in his late 40s. He is short and trim and has close-cut white hair.
"The plane in which Clinton was touring Africa was Giustra's, a MD-87 jet, complete with leather furniture and a stateroom. Giustra told me that he was still heavily involved in business -- he travels frequently to Kazakhstan, to check on mining interests he has there -- but that his wife had been pushing him to give away more of his money.
"'All of my chips, almost, are on Bill Clinton," he said. "He's a brand, worldwide brand, and he can do things and ask for things that no one else can.'"
Giustra's wife is Alison Lawton, 36, a human rights activist and producer of documentary films on humanitarian crises. She also knows Clinton and has worked with him on humanitarian efforts related to the civil war in Uganda -- a war which was the subject of her recent documentary Uganda Rising.
Remnick went on to say that Clinton is the first post-president to "tap into the newer generation of wealth" represented by people like Giustra.
The New Yorker editor added:
"Clinton's appeal for these tycoons is obvious: In exchange for giving money to a good cause -- the Clinton Foundation's budget last year was $30 million dollars -- you not only have the usual tax break and the knowledge that you are doing good but also get to play Oh Hell [a card game] until five in the morning with a two-term ex-President who knows how to have a good time."
The Clinton-Giustra connection was also noted in a Financial Times article in August. Writer Andrew Jack described a meeting between Clinton and Nelson Mandela in Johannesburg.
"
On the plane the following day, Frank Giustra effuses about Mandela: 'For me, he's up there with Mahatma Gandhi.' An Italian-Canadian with close-cropped white hair, Giustra is part of the most exclusive group in the Clinton entourage: the corporate sponsors.
"In fact, he is not travelling with us. We are travelling with him. Clinton is flying on Giustra's luxurious personal MD-87 jet, and his donations are substantially underwriting the foundation's pediatric HIV medicines programs.
"That gives him a regular place at the president's side, including the card table, where the two men and others gather on the flights and late at night in palatial hotel suites across Africa.
They play Oh Hell, a card game the film director Steven Spielberg taught Clinton when he was president.
"Giustra is coy about his fortune, much made through investments in mining. He describes his donations as 'significant,' saying he became close to Clinton after inviting him to get involved in a post-tsunami fundraiser 18 months ago."
Giustra and his wife Lawton staged a $10,000-a-couple fundraiser for tsunami-related relief at their waterfront home in West Vancouver last year, raising $1.7 million. They later held another fund-raising dinner with Clinton as guest of honour.
Giustra was born in Sudbury, Ont., and lived in Italy and Argentina as a child.
He graduated in 1979 from Douglas College where he spent his first year playing trumpet in the school's music program before switching over to business and finance.
Giustra's father was a stock market addict and introduced his son to his broker.
Giustra took a securities course and began his career in the investment industry in 1978 with Merrill Lynch as an assistant trader and then a stockbroker.
No comments:
Post a Comment