Onex Corporation


Onex Corporation is an investment manager founded in 1984. The firm manages capital on behalf of Onex shareholders, institutional investors and high net worth clients around the world. As of March 31, 2020, Onex had approximately US$33 billion of assets under management. It invests and manages capital through four platforms: Onex Partners ; ONCAP ; Onex Credit ; and Gluskin Sheff. Onex and its management teams are collectively the largest investors across Onex's investment platforms.

History

Founder Gerry Schwartz had previously worked at Bear Stearns in New York City during the 1970s, under investor Jerome Kohlberg, Jr., who later became a founding partner of Kohlberg Kravis Roberts. Schwartz returned to Canada, where he started working with Izzy Asper.
Schwartz founded Onex in 1984 and took the company public in 1987. The firm focused on private equity investing in North America using capital from its balance sheet for the first 16 years of its history. In 2000, it started raising investment vehicles with third-party capital with the launch of ONCAP, which focuses on smaller and middle market opportunities. In 2003 the first Onex Partners fund was raised. Today, the majority of Onex’s private equity investments are made through these two platforms.
In 2007, Onex invested in a credit manager, which later became Onex Credit. The platform offers various strategies, with the largest being Collateralized Loan Obligations.
In 2019, Onex acquired Gluskin Sheff + Associates, a Toronto-based wealth manager with public equity and public credit strategies.
Since its founding, the firm has generated a gross multiple of invested capital of 2.5x and a gross internal rate of return of 27% on its realized private equity investments.

Private Equity Investments

The firm's private equity investments are made in a wide array of industries including consumer & retail, financial services, healthcare, industrials, services and technology, media & telecom. The firm prefers to have majority control over its subsidiaries and focusses on three primary investment strategies: cost reductions and operational restructurings; platforms for add-on acquisitions; and carve-outs from multinational corporations.
Other companies which Onex owns or has owned a share include Celestica, Cineplex Entertainment, Spirit AeroSystems, SMG, Sitel, American Medical Response, Hawker Beechcraft, EmCare, JELD-WEN, Carestream Health, Purolator, Husky Injection Molding Systems, Allison Transmission, Canadian Securities Institute, Cici's, Sky Chefs, BBAM, Emerald Expositions, Tomkins, SIG Combibloc Group, Clarivate Analytics, Save-A-Lot, SMG, WestJet and many others.

Office

Onex is headquartered on the 49th floor of Brookfield Place in Toronto, with branch offices in Toronto, New York City, New Jersey, and London.