The retail visionary WG Galen Weston, who has died aged of 80, was the inheritor of the struggling Canadian supermarket group, which in a lifetime of work he turned into an £8billion personal fortune. His commercial interests spanned the Atlantic.
An unassuming billionaire, he liked nothing better than to wander the elegant halls of his landmark Canadian store, Holt Renfrew, chatting to customers about their experience and engaging with staff on the progress of new products and lines of fashion.
It was under his tutelage and that of his daughter, Alannah, that the family bought control of a fading and dowdy Selfridges store on London’s Oxford Street in 2003.
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