Claridge Homes founder Bill Malhotra, centre, with sons Neil, left, and Shawn in the penthouse of one its buildings, Icon condo in Ottawa.Dave Chan
In the 1980s, Bill Malhotra left his job as a structural engineer with the City of Ottawa to strike out on his own. He enjoyed the work, but restlessness set in as he watched housing developers he’d supported “making big money.” He decided it was his turn.
While it was a “big risk” to quit his job – he had two small sons at the time – he mortgaged his home and went in search of financing. “I must have been kicked out of at least four or five institutions,” says Bill, now 76. A credit union finally backed his first major project with $300,000: an eight-unit rental residence in Ottawa. From that build in 1982, Claridge Homes was born, launching him on the path to become a self-made billionaire.
Claridge today has more than 14,000 units primarily in the Ottawa area, including approximately 70 buildings of condos, rentals, retail buildings, retirement residences and hotels. The rest are single-family homes, townhouses and terrace homes. It also constructed an oceanfront Florida condo, where Bill now spends winters. The company has nearly 1,500 employees and another 1,000 through subcontractors.
Despite the current slowdown for the broader home-building industry, Claridge is weathering the storm thanks to its 40-year history, says Bill, who is CEO. “That gives us the strength to do anything we like, within reason.”
That includes closing on major projects in Ottawa’s ByWard Market such as a 26-storey, 233-unit condo tower and constructing a second hotel adjoining the company’s Andaz property. Claridge is also pursuing a deal tied to the Ottawa Senators hockey team, in which the family has an ownership stake. Through its philanthropic arm, the firm has raised more than $2-million for local charities.
His sons Neil, 48, and Shawn, 45, run Claridge with him today, though Bill didn’t set out to build a family dynasty. As an Indian immigrant and the son of teachers, “there’s no way on the Earth anybody [could] imagine,” Bill says.
The brothers joke that they were groomed to work at Claridge since birth, though they never felt pressure or expectation, says Shawn, the chief operating officer. Rather, the family business was a way of life as they tagged along to site visits and the sales centre as kids. As the boys got ready for school in the morning, Bill would already be on the phone with tradespeople and consultants. “My dad’s not really shy about bringing work home,” says Neil, the company’s chief financial officer.
They both worked their way up through Claridge to their executive positions in 2018. As teens, they took sales and construction jobs in the family business. Around a week after Neil graduated from Western University in 1999 with a degree in administrative and commercial studies, he got a call from his father: “‘We just fired somebody – you need to come and do their job,’” Neil recalls. “So I’ve been here ever since.” Shawn also joined Claridge full-time shortly after completing a commerce degree from McGill University in 2002.
That kind of early exposure is invaluable, says Elspeth Murray, director of the Centre for Entrepreneurship, Innovation & Social Impact at Queen’s University’s Smith School of Business. “I’m amazed at the number of businesses where the founder assumes the children will want to take over, and then that is not the case,” she says. Even if the next generation is interested in eventually joining the enterprise, it’s important to keep family ties strong – “bake in fun events” at family gatherings where business isn’t discussed, she adds.
That balance has evolved over time for the Malhotras. “There are not too many family dinners that aren’t board meetings,” Neil says. “I think it’s the most challenging for our wives.”
Shawn adds that the women in the family play an important grounding role, “making sure that as families, we stay close and tight.” It’s easy for family companies to “go off the rails – money, ego, these are real things we have to be aware of.”
Working with their father has meant navigating generational differences, he notes. Where he and Neil might want to invest in human resources, sales and marketing, or trades and consultants, their father might have different ideas. “The old school might be a harder line of, ‘Why are we spending on X, Y and Z when we don’t need to?’”
He wanted to change everything in one day when he was younger, Shawn says. “Then you ultimately realize the company is a big ship, and for a ship to turn, it’s got to take time.”
It also took years for the brothers to find their rhythm as colleagues. “When there are two siblings, there’s that 50-50 mentality of ‘I know better than you,’” Shawn says. “It took a solid 10 to 15 years to establish what we were each good at.”
They eventually settled on golden rules to operate by: stay in your lane, defer to each other’s expertise where required and, while mistakes are inevitable, “as long as you’re making a decision for the betterment of Claridge Homes, not yourself, we can live with that,” Shawn says.
Early involvement in the family business allowed the brothers to figure out exactly how they wanted to contribute to Claridge, illustrating how co-successors are often naturally inclined toward different roles, Ms. Murray says. “That’s the advantage of time.”
Shawn and Neil are already thinking about Claridge’s third generation with the seven children between them – the oldest is in university, the youngest in elementary school. “There’s no pressure on the kids,” Shawn says. “It’ll be presented as, ‘Here’s a great opportunity, and if you want to pursue it, great. If you don’t, that’s life.’”
Bill sees signs that his grandkids are interested in Claridge, however: “They’re curious to know what we’re doing, how many units sold this month, that kind of thing.”
The Malhotras all live within a five-minute walk from one another’s homes in Ottawa and meet every Sunday. Even if business is discussed over a meal, the message is clear: family is its foundation and Bill is reassured that the company is in good hands.
“If I was to retire or die, Claridge will continue as [it] is now – or better.”