With Mick Jagger swagger, a Bay Street investment maverick has saved the El Mocambo Tavern.

Michael Wekerle, co-founder and CEO of merchant bank Difference Capital and new panelist on CBC’s Dragons’ Den, revealed Thursday that he has rescued the legendary music venue at Spadina Ave. and College St., which was slated for closure that very night.

“I made a very quick decision,” he said while clutching a tall can of beer at the legendary bar Thursday night. “Toronto without the El Mocambo? It just doesn’t exist.”

Wekerle — a highly connected and offbeat tech industry trader who has been described as a cross between Mick Jagger and Warren Buffett — was set to take the El Mo stage to “rock out” that night with his band in celebration, said friend Michael Burden.

“I had numerous beers here back in my youth,” Wekerle said of the bar. “I saw some great Canadian acts . . . I want to give the kids a chance to look up and say, ‘I’m going to play the El Mocambo.’ That’s what it’s all about.”

Known to his pals and power brokers as Wek, he is also responsible for bringing buddy Mark Wahlberg’s gourmet burger restaurant Wahlburgers to Toronto recently at the Soho Metropolitan Hotel. The grand opening is set for Nov. 15.

“This is the Stanley Cup of music in Toronto,” Wekerle exclaimed about his latest purchase. “You look around here and see the history.”

The historic Toronto music club — which has hosted the likes of the Rolling Stones, Elvis Costello, Bon Jovi, the Ramones, Queens of the Stone Age and U2 — was set to go out with one final bang Thursday, before closing its doors for good.

The celebration, at which Wekerle was to be officially be handed the keys, was originally slated as a final gig and benefit for the Parkinson’s disease charity, featuring John Cafferty and the Beaver Brown Band, the Pat Travers Band, Wally Palmar of the Romantics and numerous other classic-rock acts.

However, rumours began to swirl Thursday that the nightclub had been saved by an unknown buyer who had submitted a deposit for the property in an 11th {+-} hour attempt to keep it open as a music venue.

Even co-owner Sam Grosso was in the dark over the sale until it was confirmed Thursday.

“I’ve seen the reports and this is all new to me. I don’t know anything about it,” he told the Star Thursday morning.

The tavern had been flooded with offers from interested buyers recently, but “nothing has been solidified yet,” Grosso said.

According to Wekerle, he paid $3,780,000 for the venue.

“And I think Sam’s gonna hit me up for sixty-two cents.”

A father of six, Wekerle has made headlines repeatedly this year. March saw the news that he had joined the cast of Dragons’ Den as Kevin O’Leary and Bruce Croxon, and then in September his 918 Porsche Spyder went up in flames at a Caledon gas station. Wekerle was not injured in the freak accident, but his pricey silver Porsche — one of only two of its kind ever to hit the road in Canada — was totalled.

The venue’s familiar multicoloured palm-tree sign, a Spadina Ave. landmark for decades, was put up on the auction site eBay in October but later taken off sale under public pressure.

This isn’t the first time the 65-year-old club has been saved by oblivion at the 11th hour.

Gross, who purchased the club for about $2.95 million two years ago, announced the bar’s pending closure in September.

The El Mocambo has lost some of its importance since its heyday, notable for — among other things — the scandalous presence of Margaret Trudeau at the Rolling Stones show there in 1977, provoking a furor that ended in the revelation of her separation from then-prime minister Pierre Trudeau.

A Stevie Ray Vaughan concert film was recorded there, as were live albums from Elvis Costello, April Wine, punk band Silverstein and more. But the club has known lean times in between, having closed previously in 1991 and 2001 before reopening.

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On Thursday, Wekerle said that he wants to install a wraparound bar and renovate the venue’s rooftop patio while maintaining its original bare-bones look.

“It’s going to take a few million bucks to turn this back into what it should be,” he said.

“The El Mocambo’s back.”