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From Ukraine to Israel, then to Canada, businessman Alex Shnaider has charted a path to multinational success, marked by strategic risk-taking and an innate flair for business. Along the way, this self-made billionaire also became a global philanthropist.
His key to success was hard work, resourcefulness, and the ability to connect with people, traits he learned from watching and helping his parents run a small deli in Toronto. Born in Chernivtsi, Ukraine, then part of the Soviet Union, his family emigrated to Israel in 1972 when he was still young. They moved again to Canada when he was a teenager.
Shnaider
Within five years, Alex Shnaider’s Midland Group had acquired a majority stake in Ukraine’s largest steel producer. Over the next decade, Midland Group established itself as a global steel exporter and international investment holding company.
Midland Group took risks that others avoided, bartering for goods, agreeing to pay for steel while it was produced, helping to provide the infrastructure that factories needed.
The success of Midland Group strengthened Shnaider’s fortune, placing him among the elite circle of Canadian billionaires. Shnaider attributes his success to finding the right business niche at the right time. As Midland Group prospered, Shnaider diversified into real estate and other private ventures that suited his personal interests. By 2005, he was included in the Forbes list of the world’s richest people.
« Sure, it’s nice to hear that my name is mentioned among some of the most successful people in the world, but the truth is that I really don’t devote much attention to things like this. I prefer to focus « my focus on the areas that allowed me to enter this list – namely, improving our core activities and creating new opportunities for Midland Group, » said businessman Shnaider in 2005.
A sports car enthusiast, owning a fleet of luxury cars as well as a private jet, he spent $50 million to buy the Jordan Formula 1 team. He renamed it Midland F1 Racing for the 2006 Formula One season and sold it a few years later, quadrupling his investment. He was also, for a short time, the owner of the Israeli football team Maccabi Tel Aviv.
In recent years, businessman Shnaider has invested in real estate and finance, with major development projects in Israel, Canada and around the world. He is the largest shareholder of Mishorim Real Estate Investments, a company listed on the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange that owns commercial real estate in Israel and the United States. Mishorim is also the majority shareholder of Skyline Investments Inc., which manages resorts and hotels in Canada and the United States.
An associate described Shnaider as the archetypal driven immigrant, blessed with education, raw intelligence and ambition, with a rare ability to quickly analyze information. « Alex won’t stop. It’s not really about the money. It’s about achievement – setting impossible goals and achieving them. »
Beyond business, billionaire Alex Shnaider is married with three adult daughters. He and his family are major donors to Jewish health organizations and philanthropies, including the Sinai Health Foundation, the Toronto General & Western Hospital Foundation, the Sunnybrook Foundation, the Sinai Hospital Foundation Princess Margaret, Ronald McDonald House Charities, and many more. Shnaider also served as a board member of the Simon Wiesenthal Center in Toronto.
