Michael Wekerle Biography
Michael Wekerle is a Canadian merchant banker and television personality best known for his three-year stint as an investor on the Canadian reality show Dragons’ Den, which he joined in the ninth season.
How old is Michael Wekerle? – Age
He is 59 years old as of 17 December 2022. He was born in 1963 in Toronto, Canada.
Michael Wekerle Family – Education
He was born to Anthony Wekerle, and Hermine Wekerle. Wekerle attended York University for a year before dropping out and working as a phone clerk at the Toronto Stock Exchange.
Michael Wekerle Wife – How many kids does Michael Wekerle have?
He had two marriages, the first of which ended in divorce. Wekerle suffered from despair after his second wife, Lea-Anne, died of a heart attack in 2010. Over the next few months, his behavior became increasingly unpredictable, prompting his departure from GMP Capital.
How much is Michael from Dragons Den worth? – Net Worth
He has an estimated net worth of $100 Million.
Michael Wekerle Dragons’ Den
He was revealed as one of two new dragons, along with restaurateur Vikram Vij, to join Dragons’ Den in its ninth season following the departures of Kevin O’Leary and Bruce Croxon in March 2014. He invested in Covergalls, a new line of workwear geared for women in industrial vocations, in one of his first dragon transactions on the series. He quit the show at the end of the 12th season.
Michael Wekerle House
ekerle sold his oceanfront Fort Lauderdale estate to the CEO of Beowulf Energy for $16.5 million. According to property documents, the Wekerle Family 2011 Trust sold the 9,151-square-foot mansion at 1000 Riviera Isle Drive to Paul B. Prager, trustee of The Prager Manga Reva Revocable Trust. Last year, the Fort Lauderdale property was listed for $20 million. There are eight bedrooms, nine full bathrooms, and two half baths.
According to public documents, Prager paid for the property with an $11.6 million loan from Bank of America. According to public records, he paid $12.5 million for the house in 2014. In October, he listed it for $19.3 million, then in February, he boosted the asking price to $20.3 million. Douglas Elliman’s Ruchel Coetzee brokered the deal.
His art collection, which he valued between $2.5 and $3 million, was also for sale, according to the original listing. Adolphus Busch III, former president, and CEO of Anheuser-Busch, erected the house in the 1930s. According to the Wall Street Journal, some of the historic elements, such as stone columns and beautiful tilework, have been preserved, despite Wekerle’s repairs.
According to records, Wekerle re-roofed the house and turned a garage into additional bedrooms. A lap pool and 520 feet of deep water frontage are also included on the property. Recent sales in Fort Lauderdale include the $6 million sale of a three-story vacation home by the two co-founders of a mortgage firm, and the $20.4 million purchase of a waterfront estate by author and social media influencer Patrick Bet-David.
How did Michael Wekerle make his money? – Business
He then joined First Marathon and rose to become the company’s head trader. In this limit, he was one of the critical figures in Rogers Correspondences’ takeover of Maclean-Tracker in 1994.
In 1995, he joined Griffiths McBurney and Partners (GMP) after leaving First Marathon. In his job with GMP as bad habit administrator of exchanging, he was very familiar with the 1997 first sale of stock of Exploration Moving. Wekerle left Griffiths McBurney in 2011 by mutual consent, in exchange for agreeing to a non-compete clause and receiving a severance package.
Difference Capital, Wekerle’s own merchant banking company, was established in 2012 to make investments in technology start-ups. The film and television studio Thunderbird Films, the data analysis company Appinions, the medical technology company BrainScope, the social media management service HootSuite, and the technology company Vision Critical are among the businesses that he has invested in through Difference Capital. He announced in 2014 the opening of a new business incubator in the Waterloo Region that would provide tech startups with venture capital funding. He then began purchasing high-tech Waterloo commercial buildings, many of which BlackBerry had previously owned.
He bought El Mocambo, a Toronto live music venue, and is a partner in the plans to expand Mark Wahlberg’s Wahlburgers franchise in Canada.
He attended the Humour Me Comedy Classic in 2013, a charity event in which business executives train to perform stand-up comedy routines as a fundraiser for the Hospital for Sick Children of Toronto. He also sponsors the annual Waterloo charity music festivals “Wekfest” and “Wektoberfest.”