Sleep Country Canada co-founder opens up about crack addiction, toxic relationship with stripper
After 26-years sober, and in the wake of Sleep Country's $1.7 billion acquisition by Fairfax Financial last year, co-founder and former chairman and CEO Gordon Lownds is ready to tell his story.
His new memoir, 'Cracking Up' — which hits store shelves on Aug. 17 — shares the story of entrepreneurial success marred by addiction.
The brutally honest tale takes readers from Lownds's his first foray into entrepreneurship as a teen at the CNE, to building one of the country's most successful retail brands, to the depths of Vancouver's infamous East Side, to a Toronto addiction treatment facility.
'When I went to treatment I thought I'd be there for a couple of weeks, get fixed up and be back to work,' Lownds says. 'The first day of treatment they said, 'based on your usage, you're going to be here for three months; you're a hard-core addict.''
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Globe and Mail
3 days ago
- Globe and Mail
The Keg Royalties Income Fund Obtains Unitholder Approval for the Transaction with Fairfax
VANCOUVER, British Columbia, Aug. 01, 2025 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- The Keg Royalties Income Fund (the ' Fund ') (TSX: is pleased to announce that, at its special meeting (' Meeting ') of the unitholders (' Unitholders ') and holders of securities exchangeable into units (the ' Exchangeable Unitholders ') of the Fund (the ' Units ') held earlier today, Unitholders and Exchangeable Unitholders voted overwhelmingly in favour of the proposed acquisition by 1543965 B.C. Ltd. (the ' Purchaser '), a subsidiary of Fairfax Financial Holdings Limited (the ' Parent ') of all of the issued and outstanding units of the Fund not otherwise owned by it and its affiliates (collectively, ' Fairfax ') for a price of $18.60 per Unit (the ' Consideration '), payable in cash by way of a statutory plan of arrangement under the Business Corporations Act (British Columbia) in accordance with the arrangement agreement dated June 16, 2025 among the Fund, the Purchaser and the Parent (the ' Arrangement Agreement ', and such acquisition and the other transactions contemplated in the Arrangement Agreement, the ' Transaction '). The Arrangement Agreement provides that in addition to the Consideration, Unitholders will be entitled to receive a prorated monthly distribution for the month in which the closing occurs, as well as a special cash distribution based on the Fund's historical practice of paying annual special distributions, with such special cash distribution being set at $0.055 per Unit for the 2025 fiscal year, prorated for the portion of the fiscal year completed as of the closing of the Transaction. The Transaction required the approval of (a) more than two thirds of the votes cast by Unitholders (including for this purpose Exchangeable Unitholders) present in person or represented by proxy at the Meeting, and (b) a simple majority of the votes cast by Unitholders present in person or represented by proxy at the Meeting, excluding the votes of Fairfax and any other Unitholders whose votes were required to be excluded for the purposes of "minority approval" under Multilateral Instrument 61-101 – Protection of Minority Security Holders in Special Transactions (' MI 61-101 '). Of the votes cast at the Meeting with respect to the Transaction, 99.42% were voted in favour of the Transaction. In addition, of the votes cast at the Meeting with respect to the Transaction, excluding those votes required to be excluded pursuant to MI 61-101, 98.79% were voted in favour of the Transaction. A report of voting results for the Meeting will be available on the SEDAR+ profile of the Fund at The Transaction is structured as a statutory plan of arrangement under the Business Corporations Act (British Columbia). The Fund and Fairfax intend to seek a final order from the Supreme Court of British Columbia to approve the plan of arrangement on August 7, 2025 (the ' Final Order '). Completion of the Transaction remains subject to the satisfaction or waiver of certain customary closing conditions, including the receipt of the Final Order. Subject to the satisfaction or waiver of all conditions to the Transaction, the Transaction is expected to be completed on or about August 13, 2025. It is expected that the Units will be delisted from the Toronto Stock Exchange in connection with the Transaction. Forward Looking Information This news release contains 'forward-looking information' and 'forward-looking statements' (collectively, ' forward-looking information ') within the meaning of applicable securities laws. This information includes, but is not limited to, statements concerning the Fund's objectives, its strategies to achieve those objectives, as well as statements made with respect to the trustees of the Fund's (the ' Trustees ') beliefs, plans, estimates, projections and intentions, and similar statements concerning anticipated future events, results, circumstances, performance or expectations that are not historical facts. In some cases, forward-looking information can be identified by the use of forward-looking terminology such as 'expects', 'estimates', 'intends', 'anticipates', 'believes', or variations of such words and phrases or statements that certain actions, events or results 'may', 'could', 'would', 'might', 'will', 'will be taken', 'occur' or 'be achieved'. In addition, any statements that refer to expectations, intentions, projections or other characterizations of future events or circumstances contain forward-looking information. Statements containing forward-looking information are not historical facts but instead represent the Trustees' expectations, estimates and projections regarding future events or circumstances. Forward-looking information in this news release, which includes, among other things, statements relating to the closing of the Transaction, the timing thereof and the conditions thereto, including the seeking of the Final Order and the expected delisting of the Units, is necessarily based on a number of opinions and assumptions that the Trustees considered appropriate and reasonable as of the date such statements are made in light of their experience, current conditions and expected future developments. Risks and uncertainties related to the Transaction include, but are not limited to: the possibility that the Transaction will not be completed on the terms and conditions currently contemplated; failure of the Fund and Fairfax to obtain the required court approval for, or satisfy other conditions to effect, the Transaction; and other risk factors contained in filings made by the Fund with the Canadian securities regulators, including the Fund's annual information form dated March 25, 2025 and financial statements and related management discussion and analysis for the financial year ended December 31, 2024 filed with the securities regulatory authorities in certain jurisdictions of Canada and available at Although the Trustees have attempted to identify important risk factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those contained in forward-looking information, there may be other risk factors not presently known to them or that they presently believe are not material that could also cause actual results or future events to differ materially from those expressed in such forward-looking information. There can be no assurance that such information will prove to be accurate, as actual results and future events could differ materially from those anticipated in such information. No forward-looking statement is a guarantee of future results. Accordingly, you should not place undue reliance on forward-looking information, which speaks only as of the date made. The forward-looking information contained in this news release represents the Fund's expectations as of the date of this news release (or as the date they are otherwise stated to be made) and are subject to change after such date. However, the Fund disclaims any intention or obligation or undertaking to update or revise any forward-looking information whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise, except as required under applicable securities laws in Canada. All of the forward-looking information contained in this news release is expressly qualified by the foregoing cautionary statements. About The Keg Royalties Income Fund The Fund is a limited purpose, open-ended trust established under the laws of the Province of Ontario that, through The Keg Rights Limited Partnership, a subsidiary of the Fund, owns certain trademarks and other related intellectual property used by Keg Restaurants Ltd. (' KRL '). Vancouver-based KRL is the leading operator and franchisor of steakhouse restaurants in Canada and has a substantial presence in select regional markets in the United States. KRL has been named the number one restaurant company to work for in Canada in the latest edition of Forbes "Canada's Best Employers 2025" survey. About Fairfax Financial Holdings Limited Fairfax Financial Holdings Limited is a holding company which, through its subsidiaries, is primarily engaged in property and casualty insurance and reinsurance and the associated investment management.
Toronto Star
28-07-2025
- Toronto Star
Sleep Country Canada co-founder opens up about crack addiction, toxic relationship with stripper
As Sleep Country Canada was becoming one of the country's most successful homegrown brands, one of its co-founders was in the fight for his life against crack cocaine addiction. After 26-years sober, and in the wake of Sleep Country's $1.7 billion acquisition by Fairfax Financial last year, co-founder and former chairman and CEO Gordon Lownds is ready to tell his story. His new memoir, 'Cracking Up' — which hits store shelves on Aug. 17 — shares the story of entrepreneurial success marred by addiction. The brutally honest tale takes readers from Lownds's his first foray into entrepreneurship as a teen at the CNE, to building one of the country's most successful retail brands, to the depths of Vancouver's infamous East Side, to a Toronto addiction treatment facility. 'When I went to treatment I thought I'd be there for a couple of weeks, get fixed up and be back to work,' Lownds says. 'The first day of treatment they said, 'based on your usage, you're going to be here for three months; you're a hard-core addict.''
CTV News
19-06-2025
- CTV News
Sleep Country co-founder reveals crack cocaine addiction in candid memoir
In 1996, Canadian entrepreneur Gordon Lownds was in the midst of two of the most pivotal moments of his life: The launch of the uber-successful Sleep Country Canada business, and the beginnings of an all-consuming drug addiction. In Cracking Up, what Lownds describes as an 'unlikely addict's memoir,' the Toronto-born entrepreneur recounts his first ever experience with drugs aged 48, his quick descent into addiction and his subsequent recovery less than three years later. The memoir, written a year after recovery, differs from others in that Lownds' experience was as intense as it was brief. The addiction essentially lasted 1,000 days, he remarks, and had come after a lifetime abstaining from experimentation. 'I think I've been drunk like 10 times in my entire life, and I can remember each one of them,' he says from his home in Vancouver Island's Black Creek. 'Booze was never a big thing with me, and I'd seen people's lives get destroyed with drugs … and I just, I just never thought I would ever be in that situation.' Lownds recounts his first experience with drugs as one that had been suggested and then egged-on by his then-girlfriend Annabelle, an exotic dancer from the United States. Just two years short of turning 50, the businessman was at the pinnacle of his career in the midst of expanding Sleep Country Canada's four initial stores in Vancouver to include over a dozen more across the country. 'I was divorced. At the time, my family had moved back to Toronto. I was on my own in Vancouver. I got involved with a stripper from Seattle, which is obviously a bad decision,' he says. Lownds recalls how he let Annabelle move into his penthouse apartment, against his 'better judgment,' only to discover she had a hidden addiction to crack cocaine. One afternoon, after another row over her reluctance to complete the treatments Lownds had attempted to enroll her in, she requested he experience the drug to better empathize with her struggles. It was an 'ill-advised experiment' that saw him hooked on the substance within six months. Within the year, he was injecting the substance intravenously. 'It was a very rapid descent into the worst possible parts of an addiction,' he says. Lownds transformed from being a lofty businessman terrified of stepping foot in the Downtown Eastside to becoming someone embroiled in the scene to such an extent that sex workers and drug dealers were comrades. Now, he laughs, he could 'give tours' of the DTES. Throughout the three-year period of addiction, Lownds estimates he spent over $700,000 on cocaine and the associated lifestyle that comes with it. Yet he describes himself as a high-functioning addict, professing his addiction didn't impair his ability to drive the Sleep Country Canada business. 'From a business point of view, the world didn't know that I had a problem,' he says. Even in the midst of his recovery journey, spurred on by hitting 'rock bottom' via an overdose and an arrest two years in, he was able to create the successful hearing aid retailer Listen Up! Canada. 'The recovery probably took me 10 years to get back on my feet, and within three or four years of getting clean, I started that second company, so I was functioning well enough to do that,' he says. 'And that turned out quite well.' Lownds deters from the common tropes of addiction memoirs when he discusses his recovery. Instead of waxing lyrical about the treatment plans, he details the negativity that permeates the 12-step meetings and the tendencies attendees have to seek apologies for their past mistakes rather than genuine recovery. Such people are the reason why he abandoned meetings in favour of working with his own, personal psychiatrist, he says. The book is honest, brutally so, and Lownds describes his drug and sex escapades in such an expletive-laden manner that he feels obliged to chime in at certain points to directly address the reader – he doesn't 'want to offend,' he assures. When asked whether he is concerned over the potential shifting of his public image in light of the book's release, he seems unbothered. 'I've spent many, many years in business. I've made friends and I've made enemies, and I'm not particularly concerned about the people who might find this subject matter, or my story within that subject matter, offensive,' he says. Lownds' primary concern with exposing his experience so publicly was the effect it would have on the individuals who do matter – his daughter, his ex-wife, his business associates and close friends. It took time to 'fix those relationships,' and now that trust is regained, 25 years on, Lownds says he feels comfortable publishing his story in the hopes that it will help others. 'It's useful to share stories where some people have managed to conquer their demons and come out of it doing OK,' he said. 'It's basically to give a sense of hope and deliver the message that, no matter how messed up you are, how screwed up your life is, it's never too late to turn things around and fix things.'
