Full Name Davoud Alliance Children 2 sons, 1 daughter Party Liberal Democrats Relations Nigel Alliance OBE Role British Politician | Name David Baron Nationality British Net worth £650 million (2015) Organizations founded Coats plc | |
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Spouse Homa Alliance (m. 1982), Alma Joseph | ||
Political party Liberal Democrats | ||
David Alliance, Baron Alliance, CBE (Persian: داوود آلیانس, Hebrew: דייוויד אליאנס; born 15 June 1932) is an Iranian-British businessman and Liberal Democrat politician of Jewish origin from Iran.
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Shapour Bakhtiar, داوود آليانس « بختيار ميخواست خميني را بکشد ولي شاه نگذاشت »؛
Personal
David Alliance (originally Davoud) was born in Kashan, Iran 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 and in the 1989 New Year Honours received a knighthood, the honour being bestowed 9 February 1989. He was created a life peer as Baron Alliance, of Manchester in the County of Greater Manchester on 1 July 2004 and sits on the Liberal Democrat benches.
Career
He owns 33% and is chairman of N Brown Group plc, a clothing catalogue retailer. He was also the joint founder with Sir Harry Djanogly of Coats Viyella plc (now Coats 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. Lord Alliance, with Harry Djanogly, turned Coats Viyella into a £2bn textile business. David Alliance is also one of the primary investors of the web measurement company SimilarWeb.
Lord Alliance serves on a number of 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 senior trustee of the Next Century Foundation. He serves on the Board of Governors of Tel Aviv University in Tel Aviv, Israel. He has a number of fellowships including Fellow of the Royal Society for the encouragement of Arts, Manufactures & Commerce; Fellow of the City and Guilds of London Institute; and Hon. Fellow of the Shenkar College of Textile Technology and Fashion. Lord Alliance holds a Doctorate of Science at Heriot-Watt University and 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.
Alliance received an Honorary Doctorate from Heriot-Watt University in 1991
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. 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.
Lord Alliance owns a home in Didsbury, Manchester and a mock Georgian mansion in St Johns Wood, an affluent area of north west London. He also owns a collection of Lowry paintings.
In 2012, Tel Aviv University established an Iranian Studies Center, named after Lord Alliance.
In September 2015 Manchester Business School was renamed in Alliance Manchester Business School (AMBS) in honour of Alliance, who has had a long-standing association with the school and wider university. AMBS'S head, Fiona Devine, said that "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."
Alliance's autobiography, A Bazaar Life (co-written with Ivan Fallon) was published in 2015.