Stephen A. Jarislowsky , who founded one of Canada’s largest fund-management firms and took on large corporations on behalf of small shareholders, has died. He was 101.
His family announced his death in a statement calling him “a visionary investor, philanthropist and committed citizen” who “dedicated his life to promoting education, ethics, and excellence across Canada.”
A Harvard-educated Canadian, Jarislowsky led Montreal -based Jarislowsky Fraser Ltd. for almost six decades and helped manage as much as $60 billion (roughly US$51.5 billion at beginning of 2007) in assets before the global financial crisis of 2007-2008. An outspoken advocate for the rights of small shareholders, Jarislowsky supported an unsuccessful effort to create a national securities regulator and fought to trim executive compensation.
He had an estimated net worth of US$3.9 billion , according to Forbes.
In late 2012, the company announced that Jarislowsky, at 87, would step down as chief executive officer while remaining chairman. “I had to fire my CEO,” he said about himself while trying to explain why client redemptions increased after his departure, Forbes reported at the time. “Some people didn’t like that.”
In 2018, Bank of Nova Scotia acquired Jarislowsky Fraser for about $950 million (about US$739 million at the time). Jarislowsky’s advanced age — he was 92, and still a director — was a factor in the decision to sell, then-chief executive Pierre Lapointe said at the time.
In his later years, he donated millions of dollars annually in the areas of higher education, medicine, science, the arts and the environment through his Jarislowsky Foundation, the Financial Post reported when he turned 100 in 2025.
Blue-Chip Focus
Jarislowsky founded his company in 1955 with partner Scott Fraser. He took a low-risk approach to long-term investing while managing large pension and endowment funds. The company’s holdings — including Toronto-Dominion Bank, Royal Bank of Canada and Suncor Energy Inc. — reflected a shunning of alternative investments and a focus on blue-chip stocks with a low portfolio turnover to reduce transaction costs and taxes.
“When Stephen invests, it’s not for six months,” Claude Lamoureux, who co-founded the Canadian Coalition for Good Governance with Jarislowsky in 2002, said in a 2012 interview. “Many of his investments he made at the start of his career. He will often build up a 15 per cent company stake and stay there. He is going to give management his opinion.”
Jarislowsky had eight rules of investing, which included buying large-company stocks with good management; choosing stocks rather than real estate, bonds or gold; starting your portfolio early in life; holding firm in market fluctuations; and keeping informed on the companies in which one invests.
He shared his philosophy in a 2005 book, The Investment Zoo: Taming the Bulls and the Bears.
In one of his battles on behalf of small investors, Jarislowsky joined other dissident shareholders in 1978 to challenge a buyout by Consolidated-Bathurst Inc. of Domglas Ltd. In the end, according to a 2004 account in Canada’s Financial Post, the minority shareholders were awarded $36 per share, compared with the initial offer of US$20.
“I don’t ever ask for anything I think is unfair,” Jarislowsky told the Financial Post. “I want a fair deal, no more, no less. I don’t want to be cheated. I don’t want to be made a fool of.”
Berlin Birth
Stephen Arnold Jarislowsky was born on Sept. 9, 1925, in Berlin. He attended schools in the Netherlands and France before emigrating to the United States in 1941, according to a profile on the website of Trent University, where he endowed a faculty position on government and public service.
Jarislowsky earned a bachelor’s degree in mechanical engineering at Cornell University before serving in the U.S. Army, where he worked in counterintelligence in Japan after World War II.
Back in the U.S. in 1946, he earned a master’s degree at the University of Chicago and an MBA at Harvard Business School. He then worked for three years at Alcan Aluminum in Montreal.
The recipient of the Order of Canada, Jarislowsky served on the boards of about 30 companies, including SNC-Lavalin Group Inc., the United Kingdom’s Daily Telegraph newspaper and Goodfellow Inc., a timber company. He was inducted into the Canadian Business Hall of Fame in 2007.
“You should not be motivated by greed,” he said in a 2010 interview with the Globe and Mail newspaper. “Be motivated by preservation of capital and realistic growth.”
With Gail Jarislowsky, who served on the board of his investment firm, he had four children.
Bloomberg.com
Stephen A. Jarislowsky, admired Canadian fund manager, dies at 101
2026-10-08 20:25:38
