Jim Pattinson is a Canadian business magnate, investor and philanthropist who has an estimated net worth of $5.5 billion. Born James Allen Pattison on October 1, 1928 in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, Canada, he was already in the car business in 1948. Although he was tasked to wash cars, he also started selling cars at Richmond Motors in British Columbia. A year later, he worked for Kingsway, a used car dealer in Vancouver during summer.

Starting with a single GM car dealership in the early 60s with $40,000 borrowed from the Royal Bank, Jim Pattinson has able to expand his business empire tremendously. In fact, in twenty five years time, he was selling more cars than anyone else in Canada.

Pattison actually owns  the second largest privately held company in Canada. Jim Pattison Group has more than 45,000 employees and is active in 25 divisions, including packaging, food, forestry products. It also runs radio stations, TV stations, Ripley's Believe It Or Not!, Save on Foods, Overwaitea Foods and multiple car dealerships.

In 2008, Jim Pattison purchased the GWR organization which is known for its franchise of Guinness World Records. Its annual book, the Guinness Book of World Records is considered as the world's bestselling copyright book. It is actually published in 37 languages in over a hundred countries.

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