then Michael DeGroote is it.

Over a 40 year period, DeGroote built himself into one of Canada's richest and most powerful men. He has been dubbed the "nation's Grand Acquisitor'' and is frequently described as one of the most successful entrepreneurs in Canadian history, and the great Canadian success story.

So when he simply got up and walked away from Laidlaw Inc. the billion dollar waste management and transportation company he built from nothing, the entire Canadian business community was stunned. One day in 1988, he announced he was selling his Laidlaw shares to Canadian Pacific, for roughly CD$500 million, and two years later resigned from the company completely.

Headlines across the country called the move "puzzling'' and "shocking''.

Then came the news that he was moving to Bermuda to retire. Media across the country got a kick out of the image of "workaholic'' Degroote spending his mornings walking the Island's pink sandy beaches, and the afternoons watching soap operas. A sigh of relief followed when the 59-year-old announced he was starting over, this time with the small and troubled Houston-based Republic Waste Industries, which Canadian analysts compared to the Laidlaw of 15 years ago. He immediately injected $10 million into the ailing company, and became its chairman and chief executive officer.

When DeGroote came to Bermuda in 1990, little was known about him locally. In his three years here, he has probably attracted more attention than most of the super rich who have homes on the Island. Not only did he go after one of Bermuda's most desirable pieces of property, Perot's Island, he then took its owner, the wealthy American heiress Marion MacMillan, to Bermuda's Supreme Court for failing to follow through with the deal.

Again the headlines in Canada rumbled on. `There's trouble in paradise' started a page one business story in the Toronto Star.

And only a few months ago, in April this year, he was faced with media attention of a different kind. DeGroote agreed to a CD$23 million settlement with the Ontario Securities Commission after allegations were made that he, his Belgian business partner, and their Channel Islands company Seakist Overseas Ltd. profitted from illegal insider trading on Laidlaw stock early in 1991. All three were banned from securities trading in Ontario for three years.

DeGroote's lawyer denied any wrongdoing at the hearing, and said: "Late in a marvellous career, he is tarnished by an error in judgement that will continue to haunt him. Clearly, appearances were bad. But this doesn't mean the transaction was illegal.'' Though DeGroote spends much time away from Bermuda, either travelling the world on business, or spending time at his Florida home, he has managed to carve out something of a presence here. He is known by many in the business community, and is said to be very much a part of Bermuda's social scene.

"I get the impression that he is really quite a popular person,'' says one acquaintance.

"He's a very nice man and is extremely personable. "He is very down to earth, a man of humble origins. He takes a personal interest in the people he meets. He seems to have a very good memory for that sort of thing. He's a fantastic businessman, with incredible energy, very friendly, and in fact very normal.'' The fact that DeGroote drove a scooter until he bought a car - a Mercedes - seems to say much about the way he does things. He starts small and then goes very big. But his success never seems to get in his way - he is often described as "unpretentious'' - and is even on occasion said to have taken those who visit him on horse and buggy rides around Hamilton.

Michael G. DeGroote was born in West Flanders, Belgium on August 13, 1933, the son of modest tobacco farmer Medard DeGroote and his wife Irma. The couple, with their three children, emigrated to Canada in 1948. He dropped out of school at age 14 and worked with his family on a tobacco farm in Langton, Ontario, about 50 miles southwest of Hamilton. At 18, he bought an old two-ton army truck which he used to haul manure to farms in Tillsonburg and Delhi, in the London, Ontario area.

By the age of 25, DeGroote had made, and lost, his first $1 million. In 1959, at 27, he purchased a small Hagersville, Ontario trucking firm named Laidlaw for $300,000, of which the $75,000 down payment was borrowed from a bank. In October, 1963, three months after one of his companies went bankrupt with liabilities nearing $500,000, he declared personal bankruptcy with liabilities amounting to $456,225.In February, exactly four months later, DeGroote was discharged from bankruptcy.

As one Ontario newspaper reporter says: "DeGroote made a helluva name for himself repaying his debts. That was really the key to his success.'' Over the next 25 years, DeGroote transformed Laidlaw into a "rapid-growth darling of the stock market'', as one newspaper put it. Laidlaw had revenues approaching $2 billion and a total share value of $4 billion.

When DeGroote decided to step down from Laidlaw altogether in 1990, it was the third largest manager of waste disposal and school bus services in North America. That year, the company had 35,900 employees, operated 22,400 school buses, 41 solid landfills, and served an estimated one million residences in Canada in the US, or about 13 percent of homes participating in curbside recycling in North America. In the residential waste collection business, it served 1.5 million homes, and was one of the pioneers of curbside recycling, having developed the "Blue Box'' in 1981.

Considering how big DeGroote and Laidlaw had become, it is little wonder his departure from the company was such a shock. New York-based Merrill Lynch & Co. analyst Bill Genco said at the time: "I talked with him (a month ago) and there was no hint of this. He appeared to me as a guy with a lot more mountains to climb.'' But Canadian Pacific chairman Bill Stinson, had a different reaction. "I anticipated this. I don't care who it is. An entrepreneur is torn between wanting to run his company and family affairs. You can't do both at that level.'' The bigger Laidlaw grew, the wealthier and more powerful DeGroote became. But it was only in 1973, when DeGroote bought the Hamilton Tiger-Cats of the Canadian Football League, that people began to take a closer look at him.

"The Tiger-Cats, which for more than a half a century have been an integral part of Hamilton's social and sporting life and have always been controlled by local amateurs or well-known businessmen, suddenly became the property of a mystery trucking magnate,'' the Hamilton Spectator said. One acquaintance was quoted as saying: "Mike is almost like quicksilver - he's such a private person.'' DeGroote sold the team in 1978 to Harold Ballard, the hugely wealthy Canadian who also owned the Toronto Maple Leafs and their home arena Maple Leaf Gardens.

While in Canada, he and his wife, from whom he has since divorced, and their four children, Gary, Tim, Michael, and Joni, all of whom are now married, lived in a 27-acre country estate in Ancaster. The estate had a 12-room, 140-year-old house.

He also has an 11-acre property in the affluent Florida city of Naples, where he is said to spend about three months each year. He is also said to have built two condominium apartment buildings in Fort Myers Beach, Florida.

In 1983, DeGroote made a CD$5 million donation to Hamilton's McMaster University for pioneering research in epilepsy. Four years later, he gave a further CD$3 million toward the $10 million cost of building a business school at McMaster. In April last year, he was invited back to officially open the Michael G. DeGroote School of Business.

In 1989, DeGroote received an honorary doctor of law degree from McMaster. The university's president Dr. Geraldine Kenney-Wallace described him as "one of the most successful entrepreneurs in Canadian history''.

It was at that convocation that DeGroote told graduating McMaster students: "Your formal education will give you a great start towards your goals whatever your careers may be. My own limited education failed to adequately prepare me for the road ahead. I did it the hard way, wasted a lot of time, a lot of money and made a lot of unnecessary mistakes.'' The following year, DeGroote was named to the Order of Canada for his role as a Canadian entrepreneur. The Order was created in 1967. Appointments are made by Canada's Governor General on the recommendation of the Order's council and are given in recognition of outstanding merit and achievement in all fields of endeavour.

Donald Jackson, the man who took over from DeGroote as chief executive officer said in his 1990 annual report to shareholders: "In 1959, the Belgian-born Michael G. DeGroote purchased Robert Laidlaw's small transport company. Driven to succeed in this highly levered venture by an urgent belief that anything was possible, he clung to a simple thought: `Do the most with the least.' "Applying that axiom, Mike was able to pay off his loan, motivate employees, build customer support and start buying companies. By 1969, with 30 acquisitions already rolled into a flourishingenterprise, investment bankers bought into Mike's expansionary visions. The company went public. The share price - CD$3.

"...The CD$3 share price split 108 times and is currently worth in excess of CD$2,300. Since 1969, revenues and earnings per share have grown at an annual compound rate of more than 30 percent. "The growth was driven by the inspiration of a visionary acquisitor for who impossible deals held the greatest fascination and for who the word `enough' did not exist.

"In spite of his enormous success in the North American business community and in every aspect of his family and community life, for those who have worked in Laidlaw at all levels, for those who fought him in the market, who bought Laidlaw's services or its shares, for those who tried to keep up with his urgency, action and the need to win, and even for new acquaintances, he is just Mike.'' DeGroote came to Bermuda in 1990 largely for tax reasons. He said he considered other locations including the Channel Islands, Cayman, Luxembourg, Monaco, Switzerland, the UK, and Belgium, where in his hometown of West Flanders he is said to be something of a hero. He is also said to love the lifestyle here.

During a visit to Bermuda, he had run into Elaine Darling, a friend of "the former Mrs. DeGroote'', he told the Court. It was Darling, who then worked for realtors Cooper Associates, who showed DeGroote Perot's Island.

He told the Court Perot's Island was the biggest property on the market and that he liked the boating facilities, three docks and boathouse. He moved here almost immediately after signing the sales agreement with MacMillan on December 17, 1990. He said that up to that point, relations with her had been "extremely cordial''.

He then told the Court that nearly four months later when he was informed the deal was off: "I tried to phone Mrs. MacMillan on several occasions to try to understand what was happening. She wasn't answering my call.'' He made it clear during the proceedings that Perot's Island, was the only property he considered "suitable'' for his needs. "I have a substantially sized family that gets together several times a year. Entertaining for business purposes has been very much part of my business life and I have, on many occasions, both in Canada and Florida, entertained very important people in the business community.'' On leaving Canada, he is reported to have severed all ties, from club memberships, directorships, even his Canadian driver's licence. The Financial Post said that in Bermuda, DeGroote's "biggest challenges were learning to drive a scooter - his scars attest to the fact that he learned the hard way - and improving his tennis game''.

But his intention to relax and live the good life didn't last long, and DeGroote is said to have gotten bored. "I had no idea of getting active immediately,'' he told the Star. "But generally you find, after you have worked for over 40 years and over 30 years at one company and you don't have too many hobbies aside from maybe tennis, it doesn't take very damn long to get bored.'' DeGroote set up two local companies Westbury (Bermuda) Ltd., an investment company which handles real estate holdings in Europe and the US, and MDG Holdings Limited, the parent of Republic Waste Industries.

He runs the companies from offices at Victoria Hall on Victoria Street in Hamilton. He has six employees. Until the final word comes on the fate of Perot's Island, DeGroote is living in a large four-bedroom beachfront home with staff quarters and a pool. Evergreen, located at the eastern end of Grape Bay on Paget's South Shore, cost him $6.5 million.

No caption RG MAGAZINE JULY 1993