The Right Honourable
The Lord Alliance
CBE
Member of the House of Lords
Lord Temporal
Assumed office
13 September 2004
Life Peerage
Personal details
Born
Davoud Alliance

(1932-06-15) 15 June 1932
Kashan, Iran
NationalityIranian
British
Israel
Political partyLiberal Democrats
Spouse(s)Alma Joseph
Homa Alliance (m. 1982)
RelationsNigel Alliance OBE
Children2 sons, 1 daughter
Residence(s)London, England
Manchester, England
OccupationNon-Executive Chairman,
N Brown Group
Net worthIncrease £500 million (2018)[1]

David Alliance, Baron Alliance, CBE (Persian: داوود آلیانس,[2] Hebrew: דייוויד אליאנס; born 15 June 1932) is an Iran-born British-Israeli businessman and Liberal Democrat politician.

Personal

David (originally Davoud) Alliance was born in Kashan, Iran, to a Jewish family and was educated at the Etahad School, Iran. He began his career in the bazaars of Iran at the age of fourteen and, by the age of eighteen, moved to Manchester, England. He has three children and five grandchildren and now lives in Manchester and London.

Peerage

Alliance was appointed a Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) in the 1984 New Year Honours[3] and in the 1989 New Year Honours[4] received a knighthood, the honour being bestowed 9 February 1989.[5] He was created a life peer as Baron Alliance, of Manchester in the County of Greater Manchester, on 1 July 2004,[6] and sits on the Liberal Democrat benches.

Career

He owns 33% and is chairman of N Brown Group plc, a clothing catalog retailer. He was also the joint founder with Sir Harry Djanogly of Coats Viyella plc (now Coats Group plc), operating in 67 countries with 22% global market share, employing 70,000 people. Share sales, a valuable art collection and some small private firms account for the remainder of the family fortune. Alliance and Djanogly turned Coats Viyella into a £2bn textile business. Alliance is also one of the primary investors of the web measurement company SimilarWeb.[7]

Lord Alliance serves on several committees, including the Prince's Youth Business Trust, Council for Industry and Higher Education, and the University of Manchester Foundation, and the Weizmann Institute. He is a senior trustee of the Next Century Foundation. He serves on the Board of Governors of Tel Aviv University in Israel.[8]

Lord Alliance holds a Doctorate of Science at Heriot-Watt University and a Legum Doctor (Doctor of Laws Honoris Causa) from the University of Manchester. He used to be an Honorary Fellow of UMIST as there is no UMIST anymore after the merger.[9]

Alliance received an Honorary Doctorate from Heriot-Watt University in 1991.[10]

Between 1984 and 1991, Lord Alliance was instrumental in the rescue of the Ethiopian Jews out of Sudan and Ethiopia by bringing them to Israel.[11][12][13]

Wealth

In the Sunday Times Rich List 2015 ranking of the wealthiest people in the UK, he was placed with an estimated fortune of £3.1 billion.[14] Since his elevation to the peerage in 2004, he has given the Liberal Democrats £668,872 in donations, plus an additional £20,996.56 in notional interest on loans he has made to the party.[15]

Lord Alliance owns a home in Didsbury, Manchester and a mock-Georgian mansion in St John's Wood, an affluent area of northwest London. He also owns a collection of Lowry paintings.[16]

In 2012, Tel Aviv University established an Iranian Studies Center, named after Lord Alliance.[17]

In September 2015, Manchester Business School was renamed in Alliance Manchester Business School (AMBS) in honor of Alliance, which has had a long-standing association with the school and wider university. AMBS's head, Fiona Devine, said, "The donation made by Lord Alliance and the Alliance Family Foundation will support the biggest transformation the school has seen since it was established some 50 years ago."[18]

Alliance's autobiography, A Bazaar Life (co-written with Ivan Fallon), was published in 2015.[19]

Arms

Coat of arms of David Alliance, Baron Alliance
Crest
A pomegranate tree Or leaved Vert fructed of five Or seeded Gules and tied about the trunk with a bow party lengthwise Vert and Gules.
Escutcheon
Argent on a pale Gules between four pallets, the outer Vert, the inner Gules interlaced with eight barrulets Vert a shuttle Or tipped and spooled Argent.
Supporters
On either side, a Persian lion Gules winged langued armed tail tufted and gorged with a plain collar attached thereto a chain reflexed over the back Or.
Badge
A Persian lion sejant Gules winged langued armed tail tufted and gorged with a plain collar attached thereto a chain reflexed over the back Or.[20]

References

  1. ↑ "These are the richest people in Greater Manchester and Cheshire - Manchester Evening News". manchestereveningnews.co.uk. 12 May 2018. Retrieved 19 November 2022.
  2. ↑ "BBC Persian". bbc.co.uk. Retrieved 7 February 2016.
  3. ↑ "No. 49583". The London Gazette (Supplement). 31 December 1983. p. 8.
  4. ↑ "No. 51578". The London Gazette (Supplement). 30 December 1988. p. 1.
  5. ↑ "No. 51720". The London Gazette. 2 May 1989. p. 5227.
  6. ↑ "No. 57346". The London Gazette. 6 July 2004. p. 8399.
  7. ↑ "SimilarWeb unifies mapping of mobile and computer Web | Reuters". Reuters. 29 September 2014. Retrieved 7 February 2016.
  8. ↑ "Tel Aviv University Governors Roll | Tel Aviv University". english.tau.ac.il. 31 October 2012. Retrieved 7 February 2016.
  9. ↑ Ward, David (22 October 2004). "Merger creates UK's biggest university". The Guardian. ISSN 0261-3077. Retrieved 21 December 2023.
  10. ↑ "Heriot-Watt University Edinburgh: Honorary Graduates". www1.hw.ac.uk. Archived from the original on 18 April 2016. Retrieved 4 April 2016.
  11. ↑ Alliance, David (4 February 2015). "Jews for money . . . saving the Beta Israel of Ethiopia". The Times. ISSN 0140-0460. Retrieved 12 June 2018.
  12. ↑ Rosemarine, Andrew (20 February 2015). "A textile titan's tale". The Jewish Chronicle. Archived from the original on 15 April 2018.
  13. ↑ Wolfisz, Francine (9 December 2015). "Dramatic rescue of 20,000 Ethiopian Jews retold in BBC film". Jewish News. Retrieved 12 June 2018.
  14. ↑ "Sunday Times Rich List 2009". timesonline.co.uk. Retrieved 7 February 2016.
  15. ↑ Electoral Commission register of donors – http://registers.electoralcommission.org.uk/regulatory-issues/regdpoliticalparties.cfm?ec={ts%20'06%5B%5D February 2011%2005:08:14'}
  16. ↑ "12. Lord David Alliance: £226m (£216m) - Manchester Evening News". manchestereveningnews.co.uk. July 2005. Retrieved 7 February 2016.
  17. ↑ "מרכז אליאנס ללימודים איראניים - Page2RSS". page2rss.com. Retrieved 7 February 2016.
  18. ↑ "Manchester Business School renamed following £15m donation from Lord Alliance - Manchester Evening News". manchestereveningnews.co.uk. 23 September 2015. Retrieved 7 February 2016.
  19. ↑ David Alliance; Ivan Fallon; Peter Mandelson (5 February 2015). A Bazaar Life: The Autobiography of David Alliance. Biteback Publishing. ISBN 978-1-84954-878-6.
  20. ↑ Debrett's Peerage. 2019.
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