Onex Corporation

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Onex Corporation TSX: OCX is a Toronto based investment firm. It was founded in 1983 by Gerry Schwartz. Today it is a publicly traded company but Schwartz has 67.6% of the voting control and continues to serve as Chairman and CEO. Its head office is on the 49th floor of BCE Place in Toronto, with a branch office in New York City.

Counting all its assets, Onex is the largest employer in Canada, with 138,000 employees. Although the firm has majority control over most of its subsidiaries, rarely does it have whole ownership.

The firm is involved in a wide array of industries. Among its specialties is buying the high cost manufacturing arms of companies and turning them into low cost suppliers.

In the 1980s it played this role in the auto parts industry.

In 1996 it bought IBM's manufacturing division Celestica.

The firm has also long been interested in the airline industry and is well known for its failed 1999 attempt to buy both Air Canada and Canadian Airlines to merge them. [1] In 2004 Onex bought Boeing Commercial Airplanes' Kansas and Oklahoma manufacturing facilities, forming Spirit AeroSystems, which was later partially floated in late 2006. In late 2006, Onex became a member of the Airline Partners Australia consortium in a takeover bid for Qantas. In January of 2007, Onex signed a deal to acquire the Raytheon Aircraft Company from Raytheon (forming Hawker Beechcraft).

Onex is involved in the American health care industry, owning a number of firms, the movie theatre business (Cineplex Entertainment). In January of 2007, Onex signed a deal to acquire Eastman Kodak's medical imaging unit, including a Kodak factory in White City, Oregon. The company formed is now known as Carestream Health.

On June 28, 2007, Onex announced that it would partner with The Carlyle Group to buy the Allison Transmission unit of General Motors for $5.6 billion.^[1]