On April 3, 2023, at 5:12 p.m., Ryan Beedie strolled up to the pool table in his downtown Vancouver office, swatted the cue ball with his stick\u2014a pregame ritual\u2014and leaned in for the break. He let go a shot so powerful that the white ball bounded back after hitting the pyramid head-on. Within seconds, six balls were down, all stripes. He\u2019d just set a Guinness World Record, for \u201cmost pool balls potted off the break (same suit).\u201d<\/p>\n
Winning is kind of Beedie\u2019s thing. There\u2019s the daily Wordle, Quordle and Octordle battles with his eponymous company\u2019s in-house counsel. An annual cribbage tournament, which he usually wins. When he golfs solo, he plays with three or four balls at a time. \u201cRyan is good at everything, whether it\u2019s cornhole or golf or random things, and you\u2019re like, \u2018Really, are you good at that, too?\u2019\u201d says Cindy Beedie, his wife of 34 years. \u201cIt\u2019s kind of annoying.\u201d<\/p>\n
Prepare to be just a bit more annoyed by Beedie, a trim, fit, 6-foot-3 mogul, socialite and philanthropist with great hair and good looks reminiscent of 007-era Pierce Brosnan. He has a net worth in the mid-to-high single-digit billions. After being named business leader of the year by the Canadian Chamber of Commerce, inducted into two business halls of fame and receiving a King Charles III Coronation Medal\u2014all within the past three years\u2014and topping Vancouver Magazine\u2019s most recent power list, they might be running out of awards to give him. No wonder Global B.C. TV anchor Chris Gailus jokingly calls him \u201cMr. Perfect.\u201d You almost wouldn\u2019t be surprised if he donned a cape and fought crime on the side.<\/p>\n
Open this photo in gallery:<\/a><\/p>\n Ryan Beedie and his father Keith at the company’s former Kingsway location in 1992. At the time it was known as Beedie Construction Ltd.Supplied<\/p>\n Twenty-five years after taking over the real estate development company founded by his late father, Keith, Beedie oversees an empire that few folks east of B.C.\u2019s Coast Mountains know much about (except for Royal Bank of Canada CEO Dave McKay\u2014Beedie is one of the bank\u2019s top two corporate lending clients). And like a rack of balls off the break, everything is expanding.<\/p>\n Beedie (the company) has developed 35 million square feet of industrial space, mostly in Greater Vancouver, where it\u2019s the biggest player, but also in Alberta, Ontario and Las Vegas. It has 365 tenants across 200 properties within a 15-million-square-foot portfolio ranging from small buildings for small businesses to distribution centres. (It sold an Amazon centre in 2024 to the founder of Zara for nearly $400 million.) Beedie has 400-plus acres of industrial land and is cooking up a deal with a Canadian pension fund that would see it sell several buildings into a $1-billion joint venture and expand further nationally.<\/p>\n The company\u2019s residential arm, meanwhile, has completed 13 condo projects, with plans for 25 more (though the market has slowed); 16 are slated for Fraser Mills, a 96-acre riverfront spread in Coquitlam that will eventually have 5,500 homes, 300,000 square feet of commercial space, plus parks, recreational facilities and 400-plus childcare spaces. Also in the works: greater Vancouver\u2019s highest-elevation residential tower, which Beedie plans to build on Cypress Mountain.<\/p>\n Then there are the side hustles. Beedie (the man) has done well investing in tech companies and recently sold down his stake in Nettwerk Music Group, the legendary label that once managed Sarah McLachlan, Barenaked Ladies and Coldplay.<\/p>\n Open this photo in gallery:<\/a><\/p>\n Beedie loves Slurpees so much, he once wrote a LinkedIn post in praise of his icy beverage of choice.<\/p>\n His best trick shot, however, is that he\u2019s also established himself as B.C.\u2019s latest kingmaker mining financier. Beedie is the largest shareholder in Artemis Gold Inc., which last year began producing at Blackwater Mine in central B.C. The mine, which is undergoing an expansion, is one of the highest-margin, lowest-cost gold producers globally. Beedie invested $193.5 million for its stake in the TSX Venture\u2013listed company; it\u2019s grown to $2.5 billion. Even after the recent gold selloff, Artemis was trading above $37 a share in late March\u201413 times Beedie\u2019s average cost. <\/p>\n He\u2019s backed other mining and metals plays, too, with more to come; overall, his non\u2013real estate investments have generated an exceptional average return of about 30% since 2010.<\/p>\n Then there\u2019s the philanthropy. Beedie treats giving like it\u2019s a division of the company\u2014one that pays societal, not financial, dividends. He\u2019s well aware it\u2019s not exactly cool to be ultrawealthy these days, as the rich get relatively richer than everyone else and some pull back from philanthropy. (Silicon Valley tech investor Peter Thiel has even encouraged billionaire signers of the Giving Pledge\u2014which commits them to giving away half their wealth\u2014to unsign, calling it an \u201cEpstein-adjacent fake boomer club.\u201d)<\/p>\n That doesn\u2019t sit right with Beedie, whose family has committed more than $190 million and counting to worthy causes. \u201cThis rejection of philanthropy by some very successful people\u2014I don\u2019t get that,\u201d he says during an interview at his Vancouver office. \u201cI believe firmly that for society to accept a capitalistic system that has some inequality, those who have had success not only should give back but be seen as giving back.\u201d There\u2019s always a component of good fortune, good luck and good timing to wealth creation, he adds. \u201cIsn\u2019t it just the right thing to do to contribute a chunk of that back into the society that gave rise to this?\u201d<\/p>\n But Mr. Perfect doesn\u2019t have everything figured out\u2014particularly when it comes to who will succeed him. There\u2019s no Kendall-versus-Shiv-versus-Roman feud brewing at Beedie. Quite the opposite: None of Beedie\u2019s three grown children work at the company, and none are interested in one day leading it. The lack of a third-generation successor bothers him. \u201cI\u2019m disappointed in that, for sure,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n To be clear, he has no plans to retire any time soon (or ever). But as Beedie approaches 60, he knows it\u2019s time to start planning for what the world\u2014and the company he leads\u2014will look like without him. \u201cThese issues are top of mind,\u201d he says, \u201cbecause there\u2019s no one behind me.\u201d<\/p>\n You\u2019re probably wondering, how did the Guinness folks authenticate Beedie\u2019s record break, anyway? Simple: He had four ceiling-mounted cameras recording the game from multiple angles. This is a guy who takes his pool seriously\u2014the cameras are partly for instant replays to settle any disputes that might arise, but mostly so he can share highlights of his best shots. <\/p>\n He typically plays with Rob Fiorvento, a partner in Beedie\u2019s residential division. Their tournaments stretch for days; the first to 25 victories prevails. (Beedie spots his opponent an eight-game handicap.) When Beedie sinks a tough shot, he\u2019ll sometimes jump up and down and run off, whooping.<\/p>\n Yes, he has some quirks. He loved Slurpees so much, he once wrote a LinkedIn post about them\u2014not \u201chow drinking Slurpees made me a better executive\u201d slop, just a gleeful, celebratory post. He likes to curate unique experiences with mates from his Young Presidents\u2019 Organization (YPO) forum, including setting up a backstage meeting with Bruce Springsteen\u2019s guitarist Steven Van Zandt and a tour of drug lord Pablo Escobar\u2019s former mansion.<\/p>\n He\u2019s really, really into music, especially \u201980s and \u201990s rock, and he knows the era \u201cbetter than I do,\u201d admits Nettwerk co-founder Terry McBride, who was in the middle of it. \u201cProbably the only thing that can beat Ryan Beedie on knowledge about music of the \u201980s and \u201990s would be an AI bot that scraped Ryan Beedie.\u201d<\/p>\n Beedie\u2019s love of U2 is next-level; during the band\u2019s residency in Vegas, he saw them 15 times; even Bono told him he was crazy. \u201cLook, my doctor said that I get so much joy from it that I should do it as much as I want,\u201d Beedie says. He credits a lyric from the U2 song \u201cGone\u201d for snapping him out of a period in his 30s when he was self-indulgent, full of swagger, partying too much and staying out late: \u201cWhat you thought was freedom was just greed.\u201d<\/p>\n Beedie reads seven newspapers a day and describes himself as having a \u201cpinball-machine brain.\u201d He\u2019s pretty sure he has ADHD and says he\u2019s \u201cmaybe a bit too much\u201d of an open book. A media trainer would likely cringe at just how open he is, but it\u2019s refreshing to hear a multibillionaire speak so candidly about what makes him tick. <\/p>\n Open this photo in gallery:<\/a><\/p>\n Ryan Beedie celebrates his 1991 graduation from Simon Fraser University with his father Keith. In 2011, SFU’s business school was renamed the Beedie School of Business in recognition of a sizeable donation from the father and son.Supplied<\/p>\n Beedie is different in many ways from his dad, Keith, who built his first structure in 1946: a workshop for his fledgling woodworking business. Keith was a relentless 19-year-old who started out building radio cabinets, furniture and exhibition ticket booths, and eventually homes, and commercial and industrial buildings. He deployed a new technique, pouring concrete into horizontal forms on a job site that, once cured, could be tilted up into place. It was simple, cost-effective and helped the company grow.<\/p>\n A child of the Great Depression, Keith was frugal and debt-averse; once, when a purchase order for paper clips crossed his desk, he demanded to know why the company needed new ones. When he found out they were attached to outgoing deposit slips, he asked the bank to collect and return them.<\/p>\n Keith\u2019s penny-mindedness was understandable. He was embezzled twice by a staffer and once flipped a coin to decide whether to declare bankruptcy during a downturn in the early 1960s. It landed on tails\u2014go bankrupt. He decided to forge on anyway, and by the time Ryan came along, the business was humming. <\/p>\n Open this photo in gallery:<\/a><\/p>\n Beedie and his father at the company’s Vancouver office in 2012. After earning his MBA at UBC and marrying wife Cindy in 1992, Beedie joined Keith and his older brother Colin at the family firm.Michael Connolly\/Supplied<\/p>\n With Keith\u2019s all-consuming focus on the company, young Ryan wanted for nothing\u2014except his dad\u2019s attention. His three older half-siblings, from Keith\u2019s previous marriage, often babysat him, and Ryan felt he wasn\u2019t a priority for his father. \u201cGetting his approval and wanting him to be happy with me was an early motivator,\u201d says Beedie, fuelling a lifelong desire to be seen as his own man. Growing up in socioeconomically diverse Burnaby also grounded him\u2014Beedie\u2019s best friend sometimes came to school with tomato-paste sandwiches or no lunch at all.<\/p>\n Beedie eventually bonded with his dad, accompanying him on Sunday drives to job sites and Canucks games. The old man would barrel through traffic, arriving during the national anthem\u2014then make them leave with a minute to go in the game to beat the rush, missing buzzer-beaters and three-star callouts. But the habit stuck; even as Beedie\u2019s beloved Seattle Seahawks won the NFC Championship at home this past January, \u201cwe watched the end walking out of the building,\u201d says his friend Al Coen, a Global TV videographer.<\/p>\n Beedie also picked up some foundational values from Keith and his mom, Betty: Never lie. Your word is your bond. Don\u2019t compromise your principles. And when you commit to something, follow through.<\/p>\n