CALGARY – He transformed a former feedlot property on the outskirts of Calgary into an international centre for horse show jumping.
He turned an upstart family utility trailer business into a global infrastructure empire, landing himself on Forbes magazine’s list of the world’s wealthiest people. And he put Alberta on the map as a mecca for economic insight, with his annual forum at Spruce Meadows that attracts business heavyweights from around the world.
As Ron Southern, 81, hosted his last annual meeting of ATCO Ltd. shareholders as chairman Wednesday, these are some of the accomplishments a few of his longtime colleagues, business associates and friends rhyme off as a tribute to the Calgary businessman.
Southern is taking another decided step back from the helm of his various businesses after having handed the operating reins of publicly traded ATCO more than a decade ago to daughter Nancy Southern – president, chief executive and deputy chairman of the board – and charge of Spruce Meadows to daughter Linda Southern-Heathcott, president of the family-owned operation.
Credited for vast corporate and philanthropic successes along with his wife Marg, Southern has been highly decorated with Canadian and international awards.
Wherever praise is bestowed on Southern for his business acumen, it’s inextricably tied to compliments for the rest of the family. Business, for him, has been a family affair.
“It is quite a family, quite a tribute to Calgary and Canada, in my opinion. He’s obviously a remarkable businessman,” said Paul Volcker, the 84-year-old former chairman of the U.S. Federal Reserve, economic adviser to President Barack Obama and longtime friend to Southern.
Volcker, who has offered his insight numerous times at the Spruce Meadows Round Table, said businesspeople from Canada and the United States flock to the event, a testament to Southern’s “dogged” pursuit of influential speakers. It’s now tough to get a seat in the place, he said.
People close to Southern say his ability to forge close, long relationships has served his career well, including in growing ATCO throughout the world from its Alberta base. ATCO, which has done business in more than 100 countries, has yet to break into China though Southern has been travelling there for about a decade to build contacts and learn the market, said former Bank of Canada governor David Dodge, a director on the board of ATCO subsidiary Canadian Utilities Ltd. who was standing for nomination to the ATCO board Wednesday.
Dodge, who first spoke at the Round Table in 1990, named three qualities of Southern that stand out – his strong ethics, global perspective and tenacity in managing day-to-day operations of ATCO.
Following ATCO’s acquisition of a controlling stake in Canadian Utilities from IU International of Philadelphia in the early 1980s, interest rates soared above 20 per cent, and payments on the significant debt ATCO took on to repatriate the company created a period of “real struggle” during which the company had to save “every nickel,” Dodge said.
Just when ATCO was crawling out, it was walloped by another period of high interest rates in the 1990s and a poor business environment.
Dodge credits Southern for his “incredible perseverance and will to have an Alberta-based and Alberta-owned company survive within this difficult period.”
Southern’s staunch pride in Canada, though, has been notable throughout times of political bitterness in Alberta directed at Ottawa, which elicited the idea of building a so-called firewall around the province. Southern, long a supporter of the Canadian military and a nationalist at heart, has always maintained good relationships with the federal government of the day, regardless of party stripe, Dodge said.
It was a surprise to Dodge, as it reportedly was to Canadian Utilities shareholders, when Southern revealed his departure “in three to six months, or longer,” from the top of the company and its parent ATCO at the Canadian Utilities annual meeting last week.
Don Chynoweth, who worked for Southern for about a decade as a senior executive of an ATCO company, said Southern has been gradually easing out of day-to-day business at ATCO as Nancy has taken control.
Southern had a “firm grip” on each division of the company and deep understanding of the businesses.
The ATCO group of companies is “his baby,” Chynoweth said. “There’s no doubt about it.”
As a young man, Southern had ambitions to be a doctor but his father Sam convinced him to get into business. They created the Alberta Trailer Hire Co., with 15 utility trailers for hire in 1947, which became ATCO – now a $13-billion international conglomerate.
“The success of the company is marked by the stock value of Canadian Utilities and ATCO, which has been very rewarding for its shareholders,” said Bill Sembo, a vice-chairman of investment bank RBC Capital Markets in Calgary who has done business with Southern and his companies since the 1980s.
ATCO shares have nearly tripled in value from a decade ago, to about $74.00 today.
Sembo, who’s gotten to know Southern personally, said the ATCO co-founder is very open, modest, hard-working, passionate about commerce in Alberta and “epitomizes” the entrepreneurial nature of business as it developed in the province following the Second World War, around serving local markets and later expanding.
A history buff, Sembo said, Southern loves reading about past political and business leaders, of which he has clearly eked out his own place in the books. “He’s a towering figure in the world of commerce in Canada.”
Calgary Herald
