Jerry Zucker, 58, Billionaire Entrepreneur
This article is from the archive of The New York Sun before the launch of its new website in 2022. The Sun has neither altered nor updated such articles but will seek to correct any errors, mis-categorizations or other problems introduced during transfer.
Jerry Zucker, a billionaire who turned a small holding company into an empire that would eventually buy one of Canada’s most-storied companies, died Saturday at his home in Charleston, S.C. He was 58 and had been suffering with cancer.
Zucker, chief executive officer of the Hudson’s Bay Company, was a scientist and inventor before becoming a global businessman. In 1983, he founded The InterTech Group, a conglomerate that makes fabrics and plastics for items as simple as tarps and as complex as insulation used in the minus 200 degree world of cryogenics. Hudson’s Bay announced that his wife, Anita, will take over as chairwoman and chief executive officer, while his son Jonathan has been named president.
In 2006, Jerry Zucker acquired Hudson’s Bay Company, created as a fur-trading venture under a British royal charter in 1670. Anita Zucker will become the first woman chief executive in the retailer’s 338-year history.
The acquisition of Hudson’s Bay Company moved Zucker onto Forbes magazine’s list of billionaires, with a net worth of $1.2 billion in the 2008 list.
Zucker was born in Tel Aviv, Israel, in 1949 and immigrated to Charleston with his parents and brother three years later. He majored in chemistry, mathematics and physics at the University of Florida and received a master’s degree in electrical engineering from Florida State University.
