The controlling shareholder of the Power Corporation empire, Paul Desmarais Sr., died Tuesday evening at the age of 86. The man his biographer called a “high-finance diplomat” was born in 1927 in the mining town of Sudbury, Ontario.

The financier built his fortune, estimated at about 4.5 billion US dollars, on the profits of the small public transport company that his parents ran and which he purchased for the symbolic sum of 1 US dollar in 1951, after he dropped out of law school .

In 1968 the company acquired Power Corporation; Today the company owns Investors Group, Mackenzie Investments and the American company Putnam Investments.

Paul Desmarais was a genius at mergers and acquisitions and an apostle of diversification. Although Power Corporation derives the majority of its profits from its financial activities, it also owns seven newspapers through its subsidiary Gesca.

His business acumen has enabled him to rise into the global financial elite. The Desmarais empire has a strong presence in Europe thanks to its association with the Belgian billionaire Albert Frère. Through Pargesa Holding SA, an international holding company based in Geneva, he has stakes in several European industrial groups, including Lafarge, the oil company Total and the spirits giant Pernod-Ricard.

He also paved the way for Canadian businesses in China and led a trade delegation to that country in 1978. It took eight more years for the Power Corporation to undertake a project in the Middle Kingdom, but since then relations have never been broken. Power Corporation owns almost 5% of Chinese company CITIC Pacific.

Paul Desmarais Sr. left the management of his holding company in 1996 and handed it over to his sons Paul and André. Nevertheless, he continued to closely follow the fortunes of the company, of which he remained the majority shareholder with almost 70 percent of the voting rights.

Paul Desmarais, an influential man close to the Liberal Party of Canada, had connections in Ottawa and Quebec. His son Paul married the daughter of former Canadian Prime Minister Jean Chrétien, France.

As an art lover, he amassed one of Canada’s most important private painting collections for over three quarters of a century. He also owned several luxury cars.

He left his heirs one of the country’s largest fortunes and the Power Corporation, whose headquarters were in Montreal. Power Corporation directly or indirectly manages more than $525 billion.

Mr. Desmarais was a member of the Queen’s Privy Council for Canada, a Companion of the Order of Canada, an Officer of the National Order of Quebec, as well as a Grand Cross of the National Order of the Legion of Honor (France) and a Commander of the Order of Leopold II (Belgium).