Daniel Fournier

Daniel Fournier is a Canadian businessman from Montreal, Quebec. A real estate investor and developer, he was Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Ivanhoé Cambridge, a real estate subsidiary of Caisse de dépôt et placement du Québec, the manager of public pension funds for the province of Québec, from June 2010 to October 2019. He has also ran once for the House of Commons of Canada and written on Canadian federalism.

For other people named Daniel Fournier, see Daniel Fournier (disambiguation).

Early life and education

Fournier was born in Pierrefonds, a suburban community of the City of Montreal. He holds a Bachelor of Arts in History from Princeton University (1977) and a Bachelor of Arts in Jurisprudence from Oxford University (1980), where he studied as a Rhodes Scholar. While at Oxford, he took a term off to play professionally for the Ottawa Rough Riders, one of the Canadian Football League's teams. In 1981, he began his career in Montreal's real estate investment and development industry.[1]

Career

During the 1980s, Fournier was prominent among a group of young French-Canadian entrepreneurs who were very influential in changing the real estate landscape in Montreal. He started his career at leading developer Canderel where he became vice-president.[2] He subsequently launched his own investment firm, which owned and redeveloped numerous properties in Quebec, including two very well-known downtown Montreal landmarks, the Ogilvy store and the Ritz-Carlton Hotel.[3]

Prior to joining Ivanhoé Cambridge, he was the Chairman of the Board of engineering consulting firm Genivar, now WSP Global, and a member of the Board of Directors of national retailer Canadian Tire. He was also a Director of the Summit Industrial Income REIT.

In July 2008, he was named Executive Vice President and Chief Investment Officer of SITQ, which was then the office real estate subsidiary of the Caisse.[4] He left one year later and, in June 2010, he returned to the Caisse as Executive Vice-President and President of its global real estate group,[5] including all office, retail, multiresidential and commercial mortgage lending businesses.

After taking office, Fournier merged all of the Caisse's real estate subsidiaries and assets except commercial mortgage lending (Otéra Capital) into Ivanhoé Cambridge in 2011.[6]

Under Mr. Fournier’s leadership, the teams at Ivanhoé Cambridge have built major global portfolios of assets in the residential, office and logistics sectors. The company also formed strong strategic partnerships and executed substantial co-investments with international firms such as Blackstone, TPG, Hines and Rockpoint. Ivanhoé Cambridge also launched several large-scale development projects in cities around the world, including the Projet Nouveau Centre in downtown Montréal, CIBC Square in Toronto, DUO in Paris and RiverPoint in Chicago. During Mr. Fournier’s tenure, Ivanhoé Cambridge completed $100 billion in transactional volume and real estate assets grew from $31 billion to $65 billion, generating net investment income of close to $24 billion, with an average annual return of 11.8% (as at Dec. 31, 2018). On August 14, 2019, Daniel Fournier announced his retirement from Ivanhoé Cambridge as of the fall of 2019.[7]

Philanthropic activities

In recent years, he has chaired fundraising campaigns for La Maison du Père, The Lighthouse Children and Families, and the Institute for Research in Immunology and Cancer (IRIC). He also was Co-Chair of the $40-million fundraising "Leading the Way" campaign of Bishop's University, near Sherbrooke, Québec, and until February 2020, he served as Chairman of the Board of Trustees of the McCord Museum Foundation, in Montréal.

Fournier ran for office in 2006 as a Conservative Party candidate. He was defeated but received close to 15% of the votes in a race involving 11 candidates.[8]

In 2007, Fournier contributed a chapter to Reconquérir le Canada: Un nouveau projet pour la nation québécoise, a book defending Canadian federalism within Quebec.[9]

References
  1. Robert Collison, "The Laird of Ogilvy," Globe and Mail, 4 November 1988, p. 72.
  2. Canada Votes 2006: Ridings & Candidates: Outremont, Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, accessed 8 April 2011.
  3. "Fournier group owns 94% of Ritz-Carlton Hotel," Montreal Gazette, 29 November 1988, D1.
  4. "APPOINTMENT NOTICE: SITQ: Caisse de depôt et placement du Quebec," Globe and Mail, 9 July 2008, B5.
  5. Paul Delean, "Caisse turns to France in latest front office shakeup," Montreal Gazette, 24 July 2009, B1; "La Caisse annonce un changement de la garde à son bras immobilier," La Presse Canadienne, 14 June 2010.
  6. http://cdpq.com/en/nouvelles-medias/communiques/communique_110421
  7. https://www.ivanhoecambridge.com/en/news-and-media/news/2019/08/df-retirement
  8. "Guess who's got respect in Quebec?", Globe and Mail, 16 January 2006, A15.
  9. Lysiane Gagnon, "Selling federalism in Quebec," Globe and Mail, 19 November 2007, A19.
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