Murray Pezim

Murray Pezim (29 December 1920-12 November 1998) was a Canadian businessman.

Mining promoter

Pezim was born in Toronto, the son of Romanian Jewish immigrants. His father worked as a butcher. In a 1991 interview, Pezim described his father, Isadore Pezim, as a bootlegger. Pezim worked as a stockbroker before turning to promoting gold mining companies listed on the Vancouver Stock Exchange. In January 1977, he was charged with fraud for his stock market dealings, but was aquitted in 1979.

In the late 1970s, Pezim allied himself with another VSE stockbroker Nell Dragovan, to create a company, Corona Resources, to develop a potential gold mine in northern Ontario at Hemlo Valley, committing $1.2 million in exchange for a 3% smelter royalty fee. The Hemlo Valley gold mine turned out to be one of the richest gold mines in Canada, which by itself increased Canada's gold production by 23%. The ownership of the Hemlo Valley mine became mired in lawsuits as Pezim in 1984 sued the LAC Minerals for breach of trust. Pezim was deposed from the board of directors of Corona Resources, but in 1989 won a lawsuit against LAC Minerals for breach of trust and was awarded shares worth $154 million. In the summer of 1989, geologists working for Pezim discovered a gold mine at Eskay Creek in northern British Columiba that proved to be worth billions.

Pezim was one of the most colorful "characters" selling shares in his companies on the Vancouver Stock Exchange. The journalist Bob Mackin wrote: """The Pez" was the quintessential Howe Street wheeler-dealer known for smoking cigars, promoting his latest get-rich-quick scheme and womanizing. He flogged Vita Pez pep pills and audio tape greeting cards through Pezzaz Productions, a subsidiary of Pezamerica. He scored big with the 1981 Hemlo Valley and 1989 Eskay Creek gold discoveries."

B.C. Lions owner

In 1989, Pezim purchased the BC Lions Canadian Football League team. Faced with the team going bankrupt, the premier of British Columbia, Bill Vander Zalm, was heard to say: "Time to bring in the Pez". With the support of the provincial government, Pezim purchased the B.C. Lions on 7 September 1989 in order to keep the team in Vancouver. Shortly after buying the Lions, Pezim caused controversy with his statement that planned to bring in a football team from the rival American National Football League, which would had threatened the business prospects of the Lions. In December 1990, Pezim was banned by the B.C. Securities Commission from trading on the VSE for one year for insider trading, disclosure violations and misleading the exchange. Pezim withdrew the news of the encouraging drilling results at Eskay Creek in 1989 in order to buy more shares in the Prime Resources and Calpine companies, which owned the rights to Eskay Creek. The B.C. Securities Commission stated in a 1990 press release: "It is damaging to public confidence in the integrity of the securities market and prejudicial to the public interest when such significant market participants contravene basic and fundamental rules".

A 1991 profile in Sports Illustrated described him as: "Up in the owner’s box at Vancouver’s B.C. Place stadium, during a Canadian Football League game involving the British Columbia Lions, an old fat guy is on his feet. On his hands are huge orange mittens that look like lion paws. He is waving them and growling like a lion in support of the Lions. Fans look up at him with a mixture of amusement, amazement, bewilderment and contempt. He is Murray Pezim, 70. He owns the Lions. He knows nothing about football. Never mind, says Pezim. ‘I’m a natural, kooky owner.'" The story noted that Pezim was one of Canada's richest men and one of the most colorful whose antics dominated the news in the Lower Mainland, saying: "Murray Pezim lives somewhere beyond Outrageous. To get there, drive to Crazed, keep going toward Bonkers via Berserk, then slow at Around the Bend and look for signs". Pezim was noted for operating in a chaotic style intended to draw media attention.

The story asked the question if Pezim was: "...a driving force in sports and finance in Canada and beyond or is he just a buffoon? Or both?” The answer was: "Depends. One high-level football source, who insists on anonymity because he fears Pezim’s power, says, ‘The man is a promoter, so all he has are his words—and none of them can be believed". Another source stated; If Murray hadn’t stepped in and bought this team before last season, the Lions would have failed, and without Vancouver, there is no CFL. So all he did was save the league. He came to the party, became the messiah, and very few know." The 1991-1992 season was one of the worse seasons in the history of the B.C. Lions to such extent that Pezim had to file for bankruptcy on 27 August 1992 and give up the ownership of the B.C. Lions to the Canadian Football League.

Pezim died of a heart attack in 1998.

Books and articles

• Barnes, Michael (1998). Great Northern Ontario Mines. Renfrew: General Store Publishing House. ISBN 9781896182858.
• Cruise, David; Griffiths, Alison (1991). Fleecing the Lamb : the Inside Story of the Vancouver Stock Exchange. Toronto: Penguin Group. ISBN 9780140145854.
• McMurtry, Roy (2013). Memoirs and Reflections. Toronto: University of Toronto Press. ISBN 9781442616622.