Ask Thomson the meaning of life or the time of day, Newman observed, and you’d get the same look of deep thought. Thomson is tall and lean, with sandy hair, and eyes described - depending on the writer - as “frigid blue” and “a shade of Arctic blue.” He reportedly wears knee-length cargo shorts year-round, including to his Toronto office. Not surprisingly, he did not return a voice message, left at his Woodbridge office, requesting an interview for this story.

Thomson’s reclusive approach has not changed in the two decades since.

He has never given a press conference, been on TV, or said anything in public,” Newman wrote in Titans, the third volume in his series of books profiling the “Canadian Establishment.” When Titans was published, in 1998, Thomson had only granted one interview - to Newman, when he was writing a history of the Hudson’s Bay Company, then owned by the family. Newman called Thomson “the reluctant heir.” “The most private of men, David cultivates a mysterious presence. Photo by Kevin King/Winnipeg Sun/Postmedia Network files Winnipeg Jets co-owner David Thomson watches his team take on the Anaheim Ducks on April 20, 2015. Turner and reportedly holds the world’s premier private collection of English painter John Constable), as well as the gossipy details of his divorces and separations. Aside from his extreme wealth, he’s probably most widely known for his world-class art collection (he’s owned works by Picasso, J.M.W. He’s the best-known of the notoriously private Thomson family, and yet little is known about him.

In the years since taking over from his father, Thomson, 63, has made his public role very private indeed. This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below. Thus David Thomson inherited part of a family fortune, his grandfather’s hereditary British peerage (Baron Thomson of Fleet), and the responsibility of being the public face of the family, even if the family’s investments were guided by professional managers. The conditions of the trusts ensure that control of the business will remain in Thomson hands for 80 years.” These Thomson boys that come after Ken are not going to be able, even if they want to, to shrug off those responsibilities. “For the business is all tied up in trusts for those future Thomsons, so that death duties will not tear it apart. “David, my grandson, will have to take his part in the running of the Organisation, and David’s son, too,” Roy wrote in his 1975 memoir. That path to the head of the family was carefully mapped out by Roy, who worked to ensure the Thomson “boys” would long be connected to the business he started, whether that role interested them or not. Article content David Thomson looks up at his father Ken Thomson at the Thomson Corporation annual general meeting in May 2000.

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