Canadian investor and philanthropist Stephen Jarislowsky dies at age 101

Canadian investment manager, ethical business proponent and philanthropist Stephen Jarislowsky, known as "Canada's Warren Buffett," has died. He was 101.

Jarislowsky, who was born in Germany in 1925, founded Jarislowsky Fraser & Co. from scratch in 1955 and built the Montreal firm into what was at one point Canada’s largest pension fund manager. 

After working in Kingston, Ont., Montreal and New York, he returned to what was then Canada's largest city and financial hub to found his eponymous firm with $100 of his money and $50 from a partner.

He led Jarislowsky Fraser for more than six decades before stepping down in 2012, by which time the firm was managing around $40 billion in assets. 

Scotiabank bought the business in 2018 for $950 million.

His commercial success made him worth some US$3.9 billion, according to Forbes, a pool of wealth he drew on for millions of dollars in donations, including to establish dozens of research chairs at Canadian universities.

Jarislowsky garnered even greater public attention after the publication of his book, "The Investment Zoo: Taming the Bulls and the Bears." Part memoir and part investment advice, the work's original French title — "Dans la jungle du placement" — topped the bestseller list in 2007, briefly surpassing the "The Da Vinci Code" in translation.

He was not a flashy billionaire. At age 100, Jarislowsky noted that he had never owned a yacht or private jet. He told the Montreal Gazette he still washed his own dishes.

He also said he drove his own car until the age of 99 but eventually hired a driver at his wife’s request.

A frequent commentator on current events and a regular contributor to Quebec's Affaires Plus magazine, Jarislowsky never hesitated to express his opinions on the worlds of business or politics. He spoke out against questionable practices and the exorbitant salaries of certain corporate executives.

In 2002, he co-founded the Canadian Coalition for Good Governance to help empower shareholders to hold executives to account and restore confidence in capital markets. He was also instrumental in the creation of the Montreal-based Institute for Governance of Private and Public Organizations.

Jarislowsky never entered politics as a candidate, but his fierce opposition to Quebec independence frequently made headlines.

In a controversial speech in the wake of the 1995 referendum, he went so far as to compare sovereignty leaders Jacques Parizeau and Lucien Bouchard to 20th-century European fascist leaders.

Revisiting the topic in 2011, he stood by his remarks and said the sovereignty movement was "still driven by religious fervour."

Berlin to Montreal

Born in Berlin in 1925, Stephen Jarislowsky was forced to Nazi-occupied Europe with his family in the early 1940s, settling in Montreal in the 1950s after living in the Netherlands, France, and the United States.

As a young man, he graduated from Cornell University with a mechanical engineering degree before being drafted into the U.S. army, where he wound up working in intelligence in Japan, among other roles, and became an American citizen in the process.

After returning stateside, Jarislowsky earned a master's degree in Far Eastern studies from the University of Chicago and a master's in business administration from Harvard Business School, which led to a job at Alcan Aluminum Ltd., the precursor to mining giant Rio Tinto Alcan.

He founded Jarislowsky Fraser at age 29. Initially, the firm sold financial data to investors. It began providing advisory services and managing money for pension funds, corporations, and government organizations in the 1960s.

The Jarislowsky Foundation, launched in 1991, funded almost 48 research chairs in areas of democracy, governance, the environment, health and Canadian art, donating about $10 million a year, said the University of Saskatchewan when the foundation established a new chair in regenerative agriculture.

In recent years, he introduced five endowed chairs intended to educate the next generation of government leaders. Jarislowsky said Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and other recent shifts toward totalitarianism raised concerning parallels of the political threats he saw in his childhood.

“People need to understand historical experiences in order to prevent repeating them,” he said in a 2022 statement, when he announced the $10-million gift.

“Once democracy disappears in a country, it takes years to re-establish if it is even possible.”

Jarislowsky had received honorary degrees from 20 universities, his family said in a statement announcing his death. 

Among the honours he received were the Order of Canada. His citation at the time of his promotion to Companion of the Order reads in part: "Known for his generosity of spirit, he has been unwavering in his support of higher education, establishing university chairs and institutes in diverse academic areas, including medicine, management and the arts."

It also noted his outspoken advocacy for strong corporate governance practices, as well as his continued defence of the rights and interests of shareholders.

He leaves behind his wife Gail and three children.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Oct. 8, 2026.

By Stéphane Rolland | Copyright 2026, The Canadian Press. All rights reserved.