Wednesday, June 13, 2007

Allan Gregg shedding partners, property

“Old hippie” leaving Strategic Counsel, selling $1.2 M country home

The Globe and Mail reports today that:

Allan Gregg, one of the most recognizable names in the Canadian polling business, has left his partners at The Strategic Counsel to set up his own shop.

Mr. Gregg said he turned 55 this year, and it had “an incredibly unsettling effect because I came to realize I’ve probably got five more years of maximum earning power.” It is very hard to make much money in a partnership structure, as the profits get distributed at the end of each year and there is no opportunity to sell the business for a lump sum, he added.

The Strategic Counsel partners include Peter Donolo, who served in the 1990s as director of communications for former prime minister Jean Chrétien. Most of the others are market research professionals.

What I don’t get is, if you are one of the chief assets of the business, then how do you also sell that business for a lump sum at the same time you are leaving it? But then I have only recently mastered online banking, so what do I know.

In a related story, last month the Globe’s real estate section reported that Mr. Gregg is selling his vacation home near Kingston. The Globe describes it as:

An 8,800-square-foot country house, with five bedrooms and seven bathrooms, situated on a 2½-acre lot, and owned by political pollster Allan Gregg. It’s set on a private point of land with 1,000 feet of shoreline on Dog Lake, just north of Kingston. Asking Price: $1,249,000.

“It’s a great place for an old hippie like me,” says Mr. Gregg.

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