Robert Campeau (1924- )

• financier
• born in Sudbury, Ontario
• left school at 14 to work as a machinist and in 1949 became a carpenter
• began to develop commercial properties in the early 1960s and won important government contracts through his friendship with Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau
• in business Campeau was unorthodox and willing to take great risks
• in 1980 he unsuccessfully sought control of a leading Canadian financial institution, the Royal Trust
• gained control of the United States-based Allied Stores, the third largest retailer in the country, in 1986
• he then took over Federated Department Stores (1988), which included the prestigious Bloomingdale's department store
• to pay for these new assets he sold others and borrowed heavily. As a result of his debts, he was forced first to auction off Bloomingdale's and then to step down as head of his corporation, sharing control with Olympia & York
• Campeau returned to real estate, taking a more cautious approach to investment
• books:
  • Campeau : the building of an empire (1989) by Michael Babad and Catherine Mulroney
  • Going for broke: how Robert Campeau bankrupted the retail industry, jolted the junk bond market, and brought the booming eighties to a crashing halt (1991) by John Rothchild
  • Allied, Federated, and Campeau : causes, consequences and implications (1991) by Daniel M. G. Raff and Walter J. Salmon

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