Edgar Kaiser Jr., the former owner of the Denver Broncos who brought John Elway to town, has died at age 69.

The Canadian financier and philanthropist was on a business trip in Toronto on Wednesday at the time of his passing, the Vancouver Sun reported.

The cause of death hadn’t been confirmed as of Saturday.

Born July 5, 1942, in Portland, Ore., Kaiser was the grandson of mining, steel and construction magnate Henry Kaiser and the son of Edgar Kaiser Sr., who helped organize the Oakland, Calif.-based health care giant Kaiser Permanente.

During the younger Kaiser’s lifetime, he served in a number of capacities publicly and privately in Canada and the United States. But perhaps his most lasting imprint on the Mile High City was his 1983 acquisition of a promising Stanford University quarterback from the Baltimore Colts.

The Colts chose John Elway No. 1 overall in the 1983 NFL draft. But there soon were rumblings that Elway didn’t want to play on the East Coast or for Colts coach Frank Kush.

To get Elway, the most hyped quarterback at that time, the Broncos gave up reserve quarterback Mark Herrmann, a 1984 first-round draft pick and the rights to offensive lineman Chris Hinton, the Broncos’ first-round pick in 1983.

“It is with great sadness that I learned of Mr. Kaiser’s untimely death,” Elway, now the Broncos’ executive vice president of football operations, said in a Broncos release Saturday.

“I am forever grateful for everything he did for me. My thoughts are with the entire Kaiser family and his friends as they mourn their loss.”

Kaiser, who purchased the Broncos in 1981 for an estimated $30 million from Denver’s Phipps family, sold his majority share in the team to current owner and chief executive Pat Bowlen in 1984.

“On behalf of the Denver Broncos, I extend our sincere condolences to the family of Edgar Kaiser,” Bowlen said in a team statement. “I have enormous appreciation for the opportunity Edgar gave me to become owner of this great franchise in 1984. Our deepest sympathies go out to Edgar’s family during this difficult time.”

Kaiser engaged in a long-

running legal battle with Bowlen after Bowlen offered to sell part of the team to Elway. Kaiser claimed he was entitled to the first right of refusal in such an arrangement.

But an appeals court in 2006 ruled that Bowlen did not have to sell 10 percent of the Broncos to Kaiser, as a lower court had ordered in 2004.

After his tenure in Denver, Kaiser served as chairman and CEO of the Bank of British Columbia until it was sold in 1986.

In 1985, Kaiser launched the Kaiser Foundation. The Vancouver-based organization was created to provide recovery resources for drug addicts and mental-health patients. He served as the group’s chairman and CEO until his death.

Kaiser is survived by his wife, Susan, two children and grandchildren.

Weston Gentry: 303-954-1054, wgentry@denverpost.com

or twitter.com/westongentry