Danny Fiszman

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Daniel David Fiszman (born 1945 in London) is a diamond dealer, and a director of Arsenal Football Club.

1 Biography
- 1.1 Arsenal Football Club
2 Personal life
3 References

[edit] Biography

Fiszman is the son of a Belgian Jewish couple who fled the Nazis during World War II. He made his fortune in diamonds. His Star Diamonds Group in London is worth about £80m, mainly trading in rough diamonds.^[1] Star Diamonds Group also owns 16% in Abbeycrest, whose major clients including Argos and Asda.

Other shareholdings take his total worth of around £154m. He is ranked at number 273rd on the Sunday Times Rich List ^[2] (305th in 2005 and 207th in 2004).

He now lives in Geneva, Switzerland.

[edit] Arsenal Football Club

Fiszman is also non executive director and largest shareholder in Arsenal Football Club. He owns 15,000 shares or 24.11% of the Company. Fiszman bought part of his stake in Arsenal from fellow director David Dein including 2,840 shares in 1999.^[3] Fiszman led the building of the new Ashburton Grove stadium, and has been identified by George Graham as the next chairman of Arsenal.^[4]

Any takeover of the club would be dependent on the acquisition of Fiszman's stake. Fiszman however has denied any wish to sell his shares. ^[5] In March 2007 he sold a block of 659 shares for over £3.9m to an unknown buyer.^[6] This is a significant sale as reducing his stake to less than 25% resulted in a loss of veto rights over any future changes to the company statutes. Speculation linked this with a move abroad where he would substantially reduce any Capital Gains Tax liability that would come with a sale of his stake in the club.^[7]