Robert Herjavec: The nice Dragon Millionaire businessman says he's more builder than hands-off investor — and drawn to mentoring

Robert Herjavec, the nice guy on Dragons' Den, greets visitors to his Bridle Path mansion with a practised handshake and hangs up coats in a long and oddly empty closet beside the grand main entrance.

The Herjavec home is undeniably sprawling. The main entrance opens onto a rotunda with marble floors and a fireplace. To the left, past the library, is a vast indoor pool with a life-size statue of a goddess, a fireplace and doors that open onto a patio in summer. Faux Grecian columns abound.

The house seems curiously bare for a home that has been occupied by a family of five for 10 years.

The pool bar is bereft of liquor or glasses. The sofas in the room where Herjavec's father, wife and youngest daughter play Monopoly for the benefit of a CBC crew filming a brief documentary of Robert's life look like matching pieces from Leon's.

Upstairs in the bedroom area, packing boxes with clothes pouring out of them lean perilously up against walls.

A cardboard packing wardrobe looms behind the couch in the television room. The downstairs ballroom is cavernous.

Herjavec blames Bono for all the packing boxes. He says he has rented his High Point Rd. house to celebrities in the summer when he and his family go to Florida. In September, Bono rented the house for a week while performing in Toronto. The Herjavecs stayed at their Caledon country property.

"They packed everything in boxes. Not like Travolta the summer before. They packed everything, when I say to you every single thing, every tie, all personal pictures, everything," says Herjavec.

It seems like a lot of trouble to go through for one week.

"Well yeah, it's Bono, absolutely."

Herjavec says his wife, Diane Plese, wanted to unpack herself. She wanted to go through their belongings, prune things down, and redecorate. She's still not done.

It was this house that started Robert Herjavec on the road to minor celebrity. Before he bought it, he was just another unknown millionaire businessman living with his family in Mississauga.

Saying he paid $10 million cash for the mansion is what got a National Post writer up there for a tour in August 2000. At that price, it was one of the most expensive homes ever sold in Canada at the time. Herjavec, the Post story said, had a personal net worth of $100 million, a portion of which came from the sale of his company, Brak Systems, to AT&T Canada that March.

Numerous later stories refer to the fact that Herjavec earned $100 million for the sale of Brak alone. It's an error he doesn't correct, and in fact repeats, saying he sold Brak for "a reported $100 million." Which is technically correct. It has been reported that way.

"Is $100 million accurate?" he's asked. "It's a long time ago. I don't want to comment on it."

According to AT&T Canada's annual report for 2000, Brak Systems was acquired for $30.2 million cash that year. Toronto property records show Herjavec paid $7.5 million for his mansion.

Herjavec is sticking with $10 million. His lengthy explanation boils down to this: Someone else had walked away from a $2.5 million deposit on the house, and when Herjavec was told the house was $10 million, he told the seller: "You have a $2.5 million deposit from someone who's not going to close, so I'll give you $7.5 million."

He feels he paid too much. He had been living in California before the dot-com bubble burst. Ordinary homes in Silicon Valley were going for $25 million. The High Point Rd. mansion seemed like a steal by comparison. Herjavec called his agent the day after he bought it.

"I said to her, `You screwed me over, you made me overpay for that house.' I'm nuts, nobody is ever going to pay that kind of money again for this house. I will never (he pounds his fist on his desk) get my money out of this house."

In 2000, homes on High Point Rd. and The Bridle Path were selling from just under $2 million to $5 million for a house and lot far larger than Herjavec's. Later that year, a house on The Bridle Path also sold for $7.5 million.

"The house is a nightmare to keep up. We're constantly having this argument, should we go, should we stay, what should we do?" Herjavec says. For now, he and his wife are hanging on. They have two daughters. Next year their son will graduate from high school.

Herjavec, 47, has brilliant blue eyes and expressive features that seem particularly adept at telegraphing sympathy, one of the reasons that Dragons' Den producer Tracie Tighe was drawn to him.

Another producer at CBC had seen a news story about Herjavec and his wife throwing a charity ball at their mansion for the Princess Margaret Foundation. Herjavec's immigrant-makes-good story is irresistible.

"All of our dragons were self-made," says Tighe. "And he's got those blue eyes. He has a very striking face. He just looks great for television, too. Everyone remarks on Robert's eyes. He's expressive. He's a good performer."

Herjavec's fingernails are bitten to the quick.

He still chokes up when he tells the story of how, when he was 8 years old, his family arrived in Canada from Croatia to escape communism with just $20.

His dad got a job in a Mississauga factory, making $76 a week. Herjavec remembers the uproar in the household when his mom was persuaded to buy a $500 vacuum cleaner from a travelling salesman. Seven weeks' salary. On a vacuum cleaner.

Herjavec swore his family would never be taken advantage of again. He went on to pursue wealth with a single-mindedness that made him rich beyond his childhood dreams, working for free when he had little to offer besides youthful enthusiasm and energy.

Herjavec has said that after selling Brak, he stayed on at AT&T as vice-president of security services, and later, was worldwide VP of sales for publicly held RAMP Networks when it was sold to Nokia for $225 million. Herjavec acknowledges he got nothing close to $225 million. He doesn't reveal how much, if anything, he made on that sale.

In 2003 he launched The Herjavec Group (THG), an Internet security company that he says had $35.6 million in revenues in 2009 and employed 56. His luxury car collection is leased by THG, including two Lamborghinis, a Hummer and a Porsche.

These days, he's focusing on plumping up his public image. Dragons' Den is a hit for CBC, but the future of Shark Tank, which airs in the more lucrative American market, is not assured. Herjavec has a ghostwritten business book coming out in September, called Driven. He recently launched a new personal website. The homepage features a picture of him that makes him look like a religious icon.

"I am much more of a builder than a pure hands-off investor," he replies via email when asked how many contestants he's invested in on Dragons' Den and how those deals have worked out.

"In the few cases from the show where the investment has worked out, I try to get involved and mentor as much as possible. Grease Monkey (as an example) is experiencing phenomenal growth since airing and we try and have conference calls at least every two weeks. Very tough to make the time but often, these small business (sic) need advice much more than they need the money."

The website for Shark Tank says Herjavec owns a private island, a fact that has been repeated in the press. It has also been reported that he owns property on Fisher Island near Miami, one of the most exclusive and wealthy enclaves in the U.S. Herjavec does not own an island. Nor is he on title for any property in Florida, according to property records from Miami Beach and Miami-Dade County.

"My personal assets – and the structure of them is set up for my benefit – including confidentiality, liability, and tax planning," Herjavec wrote in response to questions about whether he owns any property in Florida.

The jet he is shown climbing into at the beginning of each episode of Dragons' Den is not his. He owns a share in the jet. He says it's for business. The family also uses it to fly to Mont Tremblant to ski.

"The lease is coming up at the end of April. I told them, `I'm not keeping it, it's crazy expensive,'" he says. Now he's not so sure. He's worried about the safety of air travel.

On the day the Star visits, Herjavec's father is at the High Point Rd. mansion. He's a charming and roguish former mechanic in his 70s who effortlessly steals the spotlight from his son. Vladimir talks about how much he hated living under Communist rule in Tito's Yugoslavia, and how he was repeatedly jailed for speaking out against it.

Vladimir's father died when he was three, leaving a family of 10 children. "I was hungrier than a pig," says Vladimir. "When I came to Canada, I couldn't eat enough bread." Now he lives in Mississauga and travels often to Croatia. He still cannot believe his son's success.

"When I saw for the first time this room," he says of the ballroom, "I was shocked that something like this exists and my son made it."

Herjavec's mother died three years ago, aged 66.

In the brief biography of Herjavec that will air on Dragons' Den March 17, he visits his uncle in Croatia, who apparently still lives in the humble home Herjavec grew up in, with a barn out back for pigs. He gives his uncle a copy of the Dragons' Den to play. His uncle seems incredulous.

"There is a part of the world that doesn't know me – hard to believe, Caprice, isn't it?" Robert says to his daughter.

With files from Star library staff

BIOGRAPHY

Age: 47

Dragon personality: Nice, sympathetic.

Business holdings: Founder of The Herjavec Group, which sells network security products and services. Revenues in 2009 were $35.6 million.

Staff: 56.

Personal: Married to Diane Plese, three children.

Did you know? Herjavec's purchase of a Bridle Path mansion catapulted him into headlines in 2000.

Brett Wilson: The Dragon with a heart Entrepreneur pushed the reset button on life when phenomenal success in business cost him

CALGARY–"Not all those who wander are lost," says Brett Wilson, quoting J.R.R. Tolkien and setting the pace for an examination of Dragon No. 5 that's one part business, three parts psychoanalysis.

It's the kind of quote that telegraphs to the interviewer that this is not the moment to talk about oil and gas futures or investment banking deals or ROI. The citation is a daring, ask-me-anything come-on, quite in keeping with Wilson's on-air persona as the dragon with a heart on Dragons' Den, the guy who can fall for the tear-streaked emotional collapse of hopeful entrepreneurs seeking a farthing or two for their fragile business start-ups. The rich dragon – possibly the richest – who likes to say yes. The dragon who in a recent Facebook posting wrote: "Always kiss her like it's the first time, and the last time."

Why would he post that? "Someone may have been reading it," he says, tossing yet another emotional breadcrumb in the interviewer's path.

Of course, you will want to know who that "someone" is. But that comes later.

He's dressed in jeans, Wilson is. His hair is the longest it's been since he was in high school. His dog Maya is padding behind him, looking for love, just like his master. The handsome Mount Royal house is packed with Saskatchewan art, testament to Wilson's Prairie roots. There's a Joe Fafard sculpture of Ernst Lindner in the living room. There are Ernst Lindner paintings everywhere, including an uncharacteristic Lindner of daisies being clutched between a pair of startlingly full breasts.

Is this not painting a picture of a mover and shaker in your mind?

The bulk of Wilson's wealth comes from oil and gas, a story that wends its way from investment banker McLeod Young Weir to the self-named start-up Wilson Mackie to the building of FirstEnergy Corp. Anyone wanting to understand how profitable this trajectory was for Wilson, hear him say this: "Calgary was always considered a place where you could airplane bank." Translation: the money was run by visiting investment bankers from Toronto, or, just as bad, New York.

"There is nothing that oilmen hate more than dialling 416 or 212 and asking for help," Wilson continues. "It's such an arrogant perspective." One memory: he's working for MYW out of Calgary. His assistant pops her head in the door. "Toronto is on the phone," she says. "Tell them Calgary's in the washroom," he replies.

So FirstEnergy was established in 1993 as an investment dealer catering exclusively to the energy sector. "We could have been called Only Energy," says Wilson of the company's focus. He became fabulously wealthy.

We could talk about the money. Or we could talk about the price he paid in making it. "I got absorbed into that work-money, work-money cycle, deal, deal, deal at McLeod," he says. "Then when I started my own business, each hour I wasn't working was an expensive hour."

His marriage started to teeter. "The worse my marriage was the more time I spent at the office. The more time I spent at the office, the worse my marriage was."

In a special Dragons' Den episode airing Wednesday, the back stories of the dragons themselves are lightly told. Wilson speaks of his divorce.

He doesn't talk about checking himself into an addiction research program. "I thought it was workaholism," he says "but as it turns out we went back and peeled back all of the layers of the onion and got back to Brett the boy at 4, 6, 8, 10, 12. There were a few issues ... some speed bumps ... It was a powerful experience."

He says that any talk of an alcohol dependency is not accurate. "There was no dependency on alcohol whatsoever," he responds. "What there was, was an inappropriate style of drinking." He defines "inappropriate" as binge drinking. "It wasn't like I just sat down and hammered drinks. But if the party went on until three in the morning I was probably drunk. If it went on to 11 I was probably tipsy ... I would just drink until the party was over."

Depression? "Absolutely. I joke about seeing a list of the 12 signs of clinical depression and going through the list and nine of them were clearly me and the other three, well, I was still in denial."

One day in 2001 his lawyer called. The paperwork on the divorce had been finalized. "I closed the file and said to my secretary you can put the divorce file away. An hour later I get a call." Here he mimics his own self calling out to his secretary: "Wendy, can you open another file?" Wendy replies, "What is it?" Wilson's response: "Call it cancer."

Brett Wilson's friend Warren Spitz talks about how Wilson pushed the reset button on life. Cancer – prostate cancer in Wilson's case – will do that to you. Divorce will do that to you. A determination to fix the frailty of a relationship with three children will do that to you. "The cost of success was my health, my family, my marriage," says Wilson. "It wasn't worth it."

Wilson stepped down as chair of FirstEnergy in January, his business interests focused wholly now on Prairie Merchant Corp., his private investment company. His interest in the Diamond Jaxx is in there (Tennessee: baseball); as is his stake in Derby County, the U.K. football club he calls the "Saskatchewan Roughriders of the Midlands." He's still hoping for a piece of the Nashville Predators. There's an advertising agency. A fitness franchise. A divorce solutions company. Real estate. We could go on.

But the baseline in Brett Wilson's reset life is No. 1, his kids, and No. 2, philanthropy. "He's not just walking around trying to give people money," says Spitz of Wilson's philanthropic endeavours. "He's trying to help people get on their feet and stay on their feet."

Wilson is inexhaustible when it comes to causes. Keith Harradence, a friend from Wilson's undergrad days at the University of Saskatchewan, recounts a climb up Kilimanjaro to raise money for Alzheimer's research. Climbers were compelled to raise $10,000. "A week before the climb he hadn't had a chance to do any money raising," says Harradence. "We started the climb – it was a six-day climb. We get news two-thirds up the mountain that the 800 or so letters that he had personally signed before departing had raised over $300,000. That's just the way he is, right? Brett in a week could raise in excess of $300,000."

Dragons' Den plays in to that. On the surface it exposes Brett Wilson's heart, which Warren Spitz says is three times too big sometimes. He means that in the nicest way.

Sometimes other dragons have mocked Wilson, as they did when he invested in the Aerial Angels, a travelling acrobatic troupe. "They made fun of it, on national TV," says Wilson. "My girlfriend was upset ... She said you don't look like you care ... I said if I valued their opinions I would be deeply concerned."

Yes, there's a sting there. Wilson is well aware of how soft he can sometimes appear on television, especially against the caustic pronouncements of Kevin O'Leary. He says the diligent editing of the show makes him appear kinder than he is on occasion. He says he asks a bazillion questions, possibly deemed tedious by the editing team.

"I've never seen them use the core business question I ask, which is how much money and how much time have you got invested in the business? I've asked that of everyone I've ever invested in. I don't think it has ever made it to TV."

When he auditioned he was told he wasn't mean enough. "I said, look, if `mean' means being a prick, don't ask me back. I'm not interested. I'm not going to `mean up' for the show."

That's what he said then.

Today he appears interested in sharpening his elbows. "Each year I get tougher and ruder but not to the people coming on the show. Just to the other dragons." When he calls Kevin O'Leary a "moronic outlier of capitalism," he says he intends it in a friendly, spirited way.

The other dragons need him. Wilson is by far the largest deal doer. "He doesn't think enough deals are done. He told me that," says Keith Harradence, who had dinner with Wilson shortly after he accepted the dragon role. Wilson has done more than 15 deals since he signed on, committing between $3.5 million and $4 million in capital.

Then there's the issue of equity. "If you look at some of the advertising you'd think it was the Kevin O'Leary and friends show," Wilson says. He took up the point with the CBC. "I just said, that stops. No more. It's Brett and Kevin and Robert and Jim and Arlene. Equal billing."

There's ego at play, no surprise.

And, with Wilson at least, no guile.

The day is drawing to a close.

Is he happy? "For what it's worth," Wilson replies, "happiness jumped a notch when I came out of the Hoffman Institute last December."

Whoa.

With Brett Wilson, there are no uncomplicated answers. This is the third time in our encounter that he has returned to the therapeutic peeling of the onion, the getting back to unnamed issues unresolved, in this case checking into an eight-day intensive residential program that explores the first 12 years of childhood. "What they do is they explore the negative patterns in your life," he offers. "The whole premise is built around the concept of negative love ... The negative patterns in your life that came as a result of the ones who loved you."

He says the program has helped enormously. You get the sense all the emotional tremors in Brett Wilson's life run close to the surface. What were the issues in childhood?

"Let's just assume I've always had speed bumps," he says. The Hoffman, a place that will cause eye rolling and near cult accusations from skeptics, helped, and it's unconventional to hear such admissions in business quarters. "A lot of this shit, I realized, is their shit. It's not my shit," says Wilson, sounding very unlike his dragon persona.

Is he happy in love? On a side table in the living room there's a framed pen and ink etching of a fire-breathing dragon. "That's a McLachlan," he says, meaning the singer Sarah, who signed the artwork with love to Brett on his 50th birthday.

"We spend time together," he says when asked if they are still dating. "Anyone who saw us at the Olympics would know that we spend time together."

Read into that what you will. There is more interesting territory to explore, deeper crevices. Wilson is in the process of writing, with a ghostwriter, the first of what he sees as a number of books. He's grappling with how candid he will be. He knows he can be an inspiration to others. He asks that we go off the record. Brett Wilson is still thinking about how much he wants the world to know.

BIOGRAPHY

Age: 52

Dragon personality: Heart of gold, resources to match

Business Holdings: Prairie Merchant Corp., private holding company

Personal: Hires an acting troupe to scare the hell out of the neighbourhood kids every Halloween. "My goal is to send away one child in three crying."

Did you know? Pulled the typical Godiva-on-horseback prank while at engineering school at the University of Saskatchewan. Reports that it's easier to find a Godiva than it is to find a white horse.