Well-known Jamaican businessman and former Observer Business Leader nominee, Peter Stewart, died Sunday night, after a prolonged battle with cancer, his family announced.

He was 58.

Stewart, the younger brother of business tycoon Gordon “Butch” Stewart, was the owner of automotive parts and industrial equipment company, Bearing and Seals, and was one of three partners in the highly successful lottery company, Supreme Ventures.

“Peter’s death is a terrible blow for the entire family,” Butch Stewart said yesterday. “He was an entirely decent human being and generous person and personality who had a multitude of friends.”

According to Stewart: “As he got sick, Peter displayed a tremendous amount of courage. He endured the discomforts. He never complained. He just kept going and kept on planning with enthusiasm.”

Peter Stewart started his working life in 1963 as an accounting clerk in the now defunct Caribbean Atlantic Life Insurance Company (CALICO), and later became a salesman at IBM Jamaica before joining, in

1974, his brother’s Appliance Traders Group, which he left in 1980 as managing director of Caribrake to start his own business.

His first venture was a party equipment rental operation and pre-packaged ice company, which he eventually sold.

In 2002, he and Supreme Ventures chairman, Paul Hoo, were jointly nominated for the Observer’s Business Leader of the Year nomination for their role in driving the rapid expansion of the company, which was launched in 2000.

But even as he delved into Supreme Ventures and continued the expansion of Bearing and Seals, which he bought in 1989 and rapidly expanded into the market leader, Stewart battled with Hodgkin’s Disease for which he periodically underwent treatment.

In fact, at the time of his death, Peter Stewart was undergoing treatment for the cancer in Houston, Texas, the city where his sister, Patricia Hawlyruk, lives.

Apart from his brother “Butch” and sister Patricia, Stewart is survived by his wife Janette and stepson Steven Hudson.