Mitch Garber


Mitch Garber is a Canadian lawyer, investor and business executive.
Mitch Garber is a Member of the Order of Canada.

Current Activity

Garber is an active investor/Board member, partnering with leading private equity firms, including;
He is also Chairman of Invest In Canada, the Canadian government agency responsible for attracting and facilitating foreign direct investment into Canada.

Education and recognitions

From 1990-1999 Garber practiced law in Montreal at the firm Lazarus Charbonneau. He left Lazarus Charbonneau in 1999 to pursue his business career at SureFire Commerce Inc., an online payment processing start-up company he helped create with Montrealers Joel Leonoff and Rory Olson. In 2003, he engineered the merger of SureFire, then named Terra Payments Inc., with Optimal Group Inc., a NASDAQ- listed company, to form Optimal Payments, Inc., of which he became CEO. Garber led the company to a 300% increase in share price, as well as the successful spinoff, and UK IPO of subsidiary FireOne plc. He left the company in 2006 to become CEO of Party Gaming Plc. He led the company successfully until leaving to return to Canada in 2008...
In 2009, Garber joined with private equity firms TPG Capital and Apollo Global Management, principal owners of Caesars Entertainment to lead its newly-created and stand-alone digital gaming and entertainment business. Garber would serve as CEO of the new entity, named Caesars Interactive Entertainment, and was its first private investor.
In 2011, Garber led CIE's acquisition of Playtika, a small Israeli start-up developing games for Facebook.
In 2013, Garber added the role of CEO of Caesars Acquisition Company, a NASDAQ-listed offshoot of Caesars Entertainment. In addition to the CIE assets, the World Series of Poker, and Playtika, being rolled into CACQ – CACQ also controlled multiple Las Vegas hotel and casinos, notably Planet Hollywood, The Cromwell, The LINQ, Bally's, Paris, and outside of Las Vegas, the Horseshoe Baltimore and Harrah's New Orleans.
On July 31, 2016, CIE announced the sale of Playtika to a Chinese consortium involving Giant Interactive Group, one of China's leading games companies, and Yunfeng Capital, the private equity firm of Alibaba Founder and CEO, Jack Ma, for $4.4 billion. Having initially acquired Playtika in 2011 for approximately $100 million, Garber made it one of the most successful acquisitions in the social and mobile games industry. As of May, 2019, it is the sixth-largest sale in the history of Israel.
He is often credited for saving Caesars Entertainment from bankruptcy, and left Caesars Acquisition Co., on October 6, 2017 after overseeing the sale of Playtika and the successful merger of and Caesars Entertainment.
In June 2019, Caesars Entertainment was sold to Eldorado Resorts for $17.3 billion.

Philanthropy

Along with his wife, Anne-Marie Boucher, Garber commits a considerable amount of his time and money to philanthropy.
Philanthropic initiatives Garber and Boucher have been and are currently involved with, include; :
-Garber is a frequent public speaker on social responsibility, philanthropy and business.
-In 2015 and 2016 Garber was a member of the cast of the French-Canadian version of CBC’s hit show, Dragons' Den, called Dans l’Oeil du Dragon, becoming its first ever Anglophone judge.
-In 2016, Garber's life was profiled by the award-winning news magazine television series, W5.
-In 2016, Garber addressed the Cercle Canadien on business and politics.
-In 2016, Garber eulogized show business icon and friend René Angélil at his Las Vegas memorial service.
-In 2017, Bloomberg ranked Garber as the 7th highest-paid executive in America, with total annual compensation estimated at $91 million, alongside the likes of Tim Cook and Elon Musk.
-In 2019, Garber was awarded the Order Of Canada.
-He is part of the Stephen Bronfman led group attempting to bring Major League Baseball back to Montreal.
-He was a part-time sports radio talk show host in Montreal from 1991–1999.

Personal life

He is married to Anne-Marie Boucher, a tax lawyer. They are active philanthropists in the areas of healthcare, education and environment and have two sons.