About Samuel Belzberg
Samuel Belzberg, (June 26, 1928 – March 30, 2018) was a Canadian businessman and philanthropist. == Biography == Samuel Belzberg was born to a Jewish family in Calgary, Alberta, and educated at the University of Alberta. In 1962, he founded the provincial trust company, City Savings and Trust in Edmonton which was heavily involved in real-estate development financing. In 1968, he moved to Vancouver, and along with his brothers, Hyman Belzberg (1925-2017) and William Belzberg (1932-2014), formed Western Realty. In 1970, he founded First City Financial Corp as the parent company for City Savings and Trust. In 1973, Belzberg and his brothers sold Western Realty and purchased Far West Financial Corp of California, marking their entrance into the United States. By the late 1980s, First City Financial Corp, now a diversified holding company, had assets of $5.4 billion with operations in Canada and the US. First City was involved in many large investment transactions including Bache Securities before it was sold to Prudential, Gulf Oil, Armstrong World (a large building supply company) and Scovill (a manufacturing company which included Yale Locks, Hamilton Beach, NuTone) which they purchased in 1985 for $523 million. During the 1990s, Belzberg founded Balfour Holdings Ltd., a real estate company which, at its peak, operated over 26 projects spreading through the United States. Balfour's mandate was to profit from the dislocations in value in the United States due to the Savings and Loan crisis. Balfour subdivided and serviced its purchased lands and sold the lots to National Builders.
Biography source: Wikipedia. The profile adds birthday-specific historical context from the Celebs Birthday Today editorial database.