Worth some £6.5 billion ($9.7 billion) as of April 2015, Toronto and Windsor, Florida based Galen and Hilary Weston control an empire that includes Selfridges and Fortnum & Mason. Other family assets number Loblaws, Canada’s largest supermarket chain, and the Heal’s chain of furniture retailers in the UK. Of his career, British born father of two Galen Weston concluded: “I’ve been a bag boy a thousand times in five languages” whilst of her own beginnings, his Irish model turned 26th Lieutenant Governor of Ontario wife once remarked: “I was a sort of muse. In a way, at that time, [I] was representing Irish fashion”.
Two stories to keep beside you
Hilary Newsom Callan
The president of the San Francisco based hospitality group PlumpJack since 2009, Hilary Newsom Callan is married to the director and producer Geoff Callan.
Jules Bianchi (1989 – 2015)
The Stirling Moss of his generation was tragically taken in his prime aged just 25.
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4 comments
Great choices as always. They are generous philanthropists and use their wealth to do good for others in all the ways they can. They are unpretentious and fit in with Arabs as much as they do with British people and Americans. I have been lucky enough to spend time with them and I really do like them.
They also control Associated British Foods. And own Primark. Loblaws are one of my Canadian business’s largest clients….!!
His father, Garfield , should have been a legend on his own mantle piece Matthew…
He drove an ancient Ford Scorpio, that had a duff battery, so all his managers kept a set of jump leads to give him a ‘jump ‘ to get him to the next bakery. ..
They broke the mould when Garfield died!
A great pity the Weston family didn’t acquire Harrods. Had they done so they would have saved it from the ravages of its ghastly and crude Middle Eastern owners. I remember as a child going to Harrods when it was the greatest department store in the world…now it’s a seedy Middle Eastern bazaar.