Canadian In Dubai Becomes Billionaire With ‘Private CIA’ Empire

(Bloomberg) --A divestment by one of Europe’s oldest private equity firms has minted a new Canadian billionaire.

Stephan Crétier, founder and chairman of Garda World Security Corp., will be worth $2.6 billion once London-based BC Partners completes the sale of its controlling stake in the security services company back to management. His fortune includes a $2.2 billion holding in GardaWorld and nearly $400 million in personal investments, including two Napa Valley wineries, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index.

“It’s monumental, the wealth creation that’s being done,” Crétier, 61, said in an interview.

The transaction, which values GardaWorld at C$13.5 billion ($9.7 billion) including debt, will give Crétier a 58% stake in the company, while the rest of management will hold about 12%. Private credit firm HPS Investment Partners, alongside other minority investors such as Oak Hill Advisors LP, One Investment Management and BC Partners, will hold the remaining 30%.

Crétier started GardaWorld in the mid-1990s with $18,000 he raised by mortgaging his house in Laval, Quebec. The company listed on the Toronto Stock Exchange in 2003 and remained publicly traded until 2012, when Apax Partners LLP, another London-based private equity firm, bought it out at a C$1.1 billion valuation. It has gone through several ownership changes by different private equity investors since.

The 132,000-employee security business has delivered a 30% annual return on investment since going private, Crétier said.

“When you’re talking of leveraged buyout, this is as successful as you can get,” he said, adding that security isn’t an industry “that is supposed to be sexy.”

Crétier, a Canadian citizen living in Dubai, manages his personal properties through a family office. It has about C$500 million worth of investments in residential real estate and ventures including Canadian surveillance camera provider Vosker, as well as the Roy Estate and Vine Cliff wineries in Napa.

“I am an investor in some of the top lots on the planet, so that’s the key here and it’s not just for drinking wine,” he said, adding that some of the lots are well-known in the French Burgundy region. “Think of the top brands that you might have dreamed of drinking.”

GardaWorld, which has done about 20 significant acquisitions through its history, is no longer on the hunt for large deals after a failed hostile takeover bid for G4S Plc in 2020. Crétier said he has given up on his one-time goal of making GardaWorld the largest security firm on the planet and now seeks to grow its four global business lines organically.

Its pure-play security service, GardaWorld Security, remains the main revenue driver, but the cash management platform Sesami, surveillance system EcamSecure and protection service Crisis24 are growing. A partnership with Palantir Technologies Inc. has helped by providing access to artificial intelligence, he said.

Crisis24 went from zero to C$436 million in revenue within five years and now counts some of the world’s richest families as clients, according to Crétier. “We are like a private CIA,” he said.

The company generated C$6 billion in revenue and over C$1 billion in operating profit in fiscal 2024.

“Potentially, you could see a carve-out of one of those global champions with either a private equity or a strategic investor to create more value,” he said. “That’s always our objective here — can we create more value in one format or the other?”

Crétier said he’s very fond of partnering with private equity firms and doesn’t plan to buy out the remaining 30% stake that’s still owned by them.

He’s trying to keep the entrepreneurial culture within his firm, like Alimentation Couche-Tard Inc. founder Alain Bouchard — another Canadian billionaire — did with his empire of convenience stores. He said that Bouchard is a friend and mentor with whom he travels and brainstorms.

“He brings what I call the killer instinct here, and discipline,” Crétier said. “He’s got this playbook, and this is what we’ve tried to repeat in each of our industries.”