Paul Reichmann

Paul (Moshe Yosef) Reichmann (משה יוסף רייכמן‎; 27 September 1930 – 25 October 2013) was a Canadian businessman and member of the Reichmann family.

He is best known for his leadership of the Olympia & York real estate development company.

Reichmann was born in Vienna in 1930 to Samuel Reichmann, a poultry farmer, and his wife Renée.

His parents were Orthodox Jews from a small town in Hungary, but his father had risen to prominence in Vienna as a successful merchant.

Paul was the fifth of six children.

The family escaped the Nazi occupation of Austria unintentionally.

They had left the country on the day of Anschluss to visit Samuel's father in Hungary who had suffered a stroke.

Abandoning their lives in Vienna, they made their way from Hungary to the neutral Moroccan city of Tangier

In Tangier, the family prospered as Samuel became a major currency trader.

After the war Paul left home to study Judaism first in Britain and then in Israel, and his parents hoped that he would become a teacher.

In 1955 he married Lea Feldman.

In 1956, Reichmann followed his family to Canada, where three of his brothers — Edward, Louis and Ralph — had established the Olympia Floor & Wall Tile Co, and his eldest brother, Albert, had launched York Factory Developments.

Reichmann fell into property after building a new warehouse for the Toronto tile company.

He got the warehouse built for $70,000, selling a year later for a $34,000 profit.

He co-founded Olympia & York with his brothers Albert and Ralph in 1958.

Soon the company was building such facilities for others.

In 1964, Olympia and York was founded as a separate building and property development firm.

The firm was soon profitable, and expanded rapidly.

It also accepted difficult projects, including the construction of First Canadian Place, Canada's tallest building, built in 1975.

The company expanded to New York City and by the mid-1980s it was the largest developer in the world, and

In 1985 the company had bought Gulf Canada Resources in a deal that included some $300 million in tax breaks.

Many Canadians were infuriated that a massive corporation had been given such a lucrative deal.

Toronto Life magazine also published a highly critical article on the Reichmanns.

The family took offence at allegations that Samuel Reichmann had aided the Nazis with illegal smuggling operations during the Second World War.

The family sued the magazine for an unprecedented $102 million.

They were successful, and Toronto Life published a full retraction.

The company ran into severe trouble in the early 1990s.

It was due in part to a general decline in the world economy, but the company was truly brought low by the Canary Wharf project.

It was the world's largest property development, but remained half empty.

Reichmann had taken the project as a major gamble.

He had been impressed by Margaret Thatcher's reforms and obtained a personal promise from her that she would help the project, most importantly by extending the London Underground to reach it.

In Canada, Reichmann's once sterling reputation also began to suffer.

Forbes magazine ranked them the fourth richest family in the world in 1991, worth $12.8bn.

Despite his success, Paul Reichmann lived relatively modestly, described as living in a comfortable home in Toronto, and driving an old Cadillac.

He remained very private and unwilling to talk to the press.

He retained his strong religious views, and used much of his fortune to support his religion.

In Toronto he built a number of schools and synagogues which became the centre of a thriving Orthodox community.

Shunning most luxuries, his one personal indulgence was collecting rare and valuable Jewish texts.

Pursuant to Jewish law, all of Olympia and York's construction projects halted on the Jewish Sabbath and all holy days.

In 1992, as Olympia and York collapsed under some $20 billion in debt, Reichmann lost most of his family fortune.