From Toronto Stock Exchange to Dragon’s Den, Michael Wekerle also known as Wek has explored different fields and become a star of Canadian finance. He is famous as a television celebrity and a Canadian merchant banker. As a businessman, Wekerle has clever eyes on spotting commercial value in sports, tech, and television. Wekerle became popular among the public when he started investing in the Canadian television show Dragon’s Den.
Wekerle appeared first in the ninth season of this reality show. His career was a series of ups and downs, but he managed to go on. Let us get to know Micheal Wekerle more in this article. Stay until the end of the page.
Michael Wekerle has invested in many successful companies and he is also the founder and Chairman of Different Capital Financial Inc., a merchant bank. Wekerle donates a huge sum of money every year to different projects and organizations like Seeds of Hope, SickKids, Opera Atelier, and a few others.
Net Worth
As an investor and banker, Michael Wekerle’s net worth is $100 million. Wekerle has priced real estate assets in different locations. He also owns high-tech business properties in places like Ontario, El Mocambo, and Waterloo. He is also a partner in a burger chain in Boston called the Canadian franchise of Wahlburgers.
His first job was at a firm on the floor of the Toronto Stock Exchange. From fetching coffee to co-workers Wekerle has grown into a first-class businessman. He worked hard in putting together stock buyers and sellers. Wekerle’s excellent socializing skills and personality helped him to succeed.
“He’s the guy who knows everyone, and everybody likes Mike”- Cindy Tripp (fellow trader)
Wekerle also had an outstanding memory and it helped him to keep all the details of buyers and sellers. He was an exceptional foreseer of changes in the stock market.
Marriage and Wife
Michael Wekerle married twice and his family life was complicated just like the field he works in. Wekerle’s first marriage was in 1989 with Patricia Wekerle. They had a daughter. The couple got divorced after 11 years of family life in 2000. He married Le-Anne, his second in the very same year. Their family life was going smoothly and happily. Wekerle and Le-Anne had four kids. Two of them are daughters and a pair of twin sons. But in 2010, unfortunately, Le-Anne died of a heart attack. His wife’s sudden death affected Wekerle so much. His behavior changed negatively and Wekerle was depressed to the core.
For the next few months after Le-Anne’s death, Wekerle’s life was disastrous and chaotic. Several ill-behavior cases happened against him. Drunk Wekerle infringed Rex Murphy, who was the host of Newcap Broadcasting’s charity fundraising event. Wekerle also made problems in a hotel at Little Rock and this resulted in the injury of a hotel valet. He filed a complaint against Wekerle in 2013 accusing Wekerle’s behavior caused a permanent injury to him. Wekerle lives in Caledon in Ontario and in 2014 his Porsche 918 Spyder exploded at Esso gas station. The reason for the accident was overfilling of gas but there were no human casualties due to the accident. Wekerle’s personal life is tragic even though he was able to get rich in no time.
House and lifestyle
Michael Wekerle with his wife and children led a luxurious and extravagant life. In Fort Lauderdale, he had a 3500 square foot expensive beach house. Wekerle also had another beach house on Harbour Island in the Bahamas. Before Le-Anne’s death, Wekerle’s family along with their close relatives and friends went for an exclusive vacation in Las Ventanas Al Paraíso resort in Los Cabos. It was after this trip the catastrophe of Le-Anne’s death hit his family.
Personal life and reputation
Apart from the money and success, Michael Wekerle (The Wek) has severed his reputation several times in different contexts. The most notorious was his erratic behavior in the Capital hotel. Alcoholism and rowdy manner brought trouble to this finance bad boy of Canada. Wekerle also lost his public support massively due to these black marks in his conduct.
Business career
Wekerle is a Toronto native and studied at York University for a year. He later dropped out of college and started doing small jobs. In Toronto Stock Exchange he worked as a phone clerk. It was from there Michael Wekerle’s business journey has officially started. Soon he became a head trader of the firm after he joined the First Marathon. Wekerle had great potential and he was one of the principal stars in Roger Communications’ takeover of Maclean Hunter. It was in the year 1994.
In 1995, Wekerle left First Marathon and become trading vice chairman at Griffiths McBurney and Partners also known as GMP. Wekerle had a great role in the stock market launch of Research In Motion in 1997. He left Griffiths McBurney after a few years and started his merchant bank. His firm Difference Capital made investments in several technology startups and other organizations.
One of the dragons in Dragon’s Den
Dragon’s Den is a British television show for businessmen and entrepreneurs. Wekerle’s appearance in the show increased his public popularity. He became one of the dragon investors of the show in its ninth season along with Vikram Vij. They filled the absence of Kevin O’Leary and Bruce Croxon who left the show that year. Wekerle made his first dragon investment for women’s workwear called Covergalls.
Wekerle also participated in the Humour Me Comedy Classic in 2013. It was a standup comedy show of business executives for fundraising for Hospital for Sick Children in Toronto. He also contributed to music festivals done for charity. One of them is “Wekfest” conducted in Waterloo. Wekerle also appeared in a 2019 Canadian animated series called Trailer Park Boys: The Animated Series.
This fifty-seven-year-old Canadian merchant banker has become a business magnet through several ups and downs in life. Even though he had a notorious reputation the finance world agrees to his extraordinary management of the Stock market and other enterprises.