Behind every billionaire there is a story!

‘People make the business. It is not the money’

Bob Dhillon will go on to become the first Sikh billionaire in North America. Predictions on these lines began when he went to do his MBA at the University of Western Ontario, London, Ontario, nine years ago.

‘Dhillon was aggressive, ambitious and entrepreneurial,’ wrote one of his classmates when he graduated in 1998. ‘He was known among his classmates for his stated goal of becoming the world’s first Sikh billionaire.’

Recently, when The Globe and Mail newspaper’s Gordon Pitts asked him whether he would be the first Sikh billionaire in North America, Dhillon responded, ‘I hope sooner rather than later.’

His publicly-listed Mainstreet owns hundreds of apartment buildings in Calgary, Alberta; Surrey and Abbotsford, British Columbia, Toronto and elsewhere. He owns a 2,700-acre island in Belize where he is building what he calls an “architecturally-controlled oasis in the Caribbean,” with “resorts, condos, high-end houses, golf courses, residential lots.” In Belize — of which he is the consul general in Canada — his neighbour is movie star Leonardo DiCaprio. At 19, Dhillon, who is now 42, bought two houses and sold them for an $18,000 profit. For the next 15 years he reportedly bought and sold Calgary real estate worth about $150 million. The colourful businessman spoke to Rediff India Abroad Senior Editor Ajit Jain recently.

There are reports saying you are becoming the first Sikh billionaire in North America.

These media guys need a spin. When I did my MBA programme and took my company public they did a case study on real estate. One professor wrote about me as the first Sikh billionaire and that went out of control. Everybody is talking about it. Peter Newman got hold of that case study and he wrote in MacLean’s and Diane Francis (editor of the Financial Post) also coined it.

read the rest published by Rediff here:

http://www.rediff.com/money/2007/dec/17binter.htm