Nova Scotia Trust Company and Central Guaranty Trust Corporation

Central Guaranty Trust Corporation: Mr. Cohen, who died in Moncton on Oct. 24 at the age of 93, was a successful lawyer before establishing a financial empire that spread beyond New Brunswick. In 1974, he co-founded, with Leonard Ellen, the Central and Nova Scotia Trust Company, which later became Central Guaranty Trust Corporation. For a brief time, the multi-billion dollar corporation was among the top five trust companies in Canada, before its collapse in the early 1990s, according to Globe and Mail. Born in 1921 in Moncton, Mr. Cohen was the son of immigrant parents. His mother, Molly, came from a village that became part of Poland after the First World War, he wrote in his memoir. He described her as a determined woman with boundless ambition and tireless energy, which he inherited. She lost her hearing early in life and learned to speak limited English by lip reading. His Russian-born father, David, travelled throughout the Maritimes selling draft horses before opening a small grocery store on Moncton Main Street. The Yiddish-speaking family lived above the store in an apartment that had only cold water. With few Jewish families in the city at the time, Mr. Cohen developed strong connections with other immigrants and non-English speakers, such as Acadians. Later in life, he used his wealth to support the preservation of Acadian art and culture and Reuben Cohen was a New Brunswick lawyer, financier, philanthropist and university chancellor. His life reads like an epic rags-to-riches tale complete with the impoverished protagonist acquiring power, wealth and the love of his life, only to tragically lose it all before fighting his way back through strength of character. Reuben Cohen was an original. A one-of-a-kind character that could have been drawn directly from the pages of a rags-to-riches novel by Horatio Alger, said Frank McKenna, a friend and former premier of New Brunswick. (www.immigrantscanada.com). As reported in the news.