Professional and Business Career
All currency is in Canadian dollars.
While still in law school, Williams led a consortium of businesspeople that was granted one of Newfoundland's first cable television licenses and started the company "Avalon Cablevision". Through major acquisitions and the very early adoption of the Internet ISP business (via theZone dial-up and later RoadRunner high-speed cable Internet services), he built Cable Atlantic into one of the largest communications companies in Atlantic Canada. As the principal owner, he sold the telecommunications portion of the business for $76 million dollars in April 2000, to GT Group Telecom Inc. The cable TV portion of Cable Atlantic was sold to Rogers Cable Inc. for $152 million in November 2000. This sale plus the success of his extensive law practice gave him the nickname of "Danny Millions" during the early 2000s.
Williams has been practising law since 1972, becoming a financially successful lawyer, and was appointed Queen's Counsel in 1984. His firm represented many of the abused altar boys and orphans who sued the Roman Catholic Church, the Christian Brothers and the province of Newfoundland following the Mount Cashel Orphanage scandal.
Williams served as president of OIS Fisher, an oil and natural gas company (later renamed Spectrol Group), and has invested in golf courses and resorts throughout the province. He has also served as the Chairman of the Canadian Parliamentary Channel (CPAC), the Newfoundland and Labrador Film Development Corporation as well as the Provincial Government Offshore Oil Impact Advisory Council.
While he was the owner of Cable Atlantic Williams purchased the naming rights to a sports complex in St. John's for $600,000 from Molson. Before the centre opened, however, Williams had sold Cable Atlantic to Rogers Communications to pursue his political career, but retained the naming rights. Ultimately he chose to name the centre Mile One Centre, based on the venue's location at the beginning of the Trans Canada Highway.
Read more about this topic: Danny Williams (politician)
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