Israeli businessman Eliezer Fishman passes at 80
Fishman's businesses encompassed real estate, communications, retail, textiles, credit and energy. In 2006, he suffered losses of NIS 400 million on an investment in the collapsed Turkish lira. Almost a decade later, his real estate companies fell into heavy debts and most of his assets were put up for sale.
Eliezer Fishman, one of the most prominent tycoons in Israel over recent decades, passed away at the age of 80 on Friday. Fishman, an accountant by training, began his journey in the business world with the establishment of mutual funds in the 1980s, the boom years in the local stock market. The assets of his two funds peaked at more than NIS 1.5 billion, which disappeared with the stock market crash in 1983. Later Fishman returned to business in the field of real estate and began to make his way to the top of the business world in Israel.
At the end of the previous millennium and the beginning of the current one, Fishman controlled a business empire in a wide variety of fields - including real estate, communications, retail, textiles, credit and energy. He controlled the economically profitable real estate companies Jerusalem Economic Corporation and Darban, which owned commercial centers and office buildings throughout Israel, Germany and the USA, and were valued at billions of shekels on the stock exchange.
At the same time, he owned the internet and telephone company Golden Lines, the cable television company Arutzei Zahav, about a third of the Yedioth Ahronoth group, jointly owned the Globes newspaper, and another property company, Tnuport, and the Mirland company that operated in the real estate sector in Russia. He also owned the cigarette importer Globrands. In the retail sector, he owned the chains Home Center, Super Greenberg, ID Design and Mega Sport, and other retail companies incorporated under "Fishman Chains".
In 2006, Fishman suffered heavy losses of NIS 400 million on an investment he made in the collapsed Turkish lira. Almost a decade later, Fishman's real estate companies fell into heavy debts with the banks, and in 2017 he was declared bankrupt and most of his assets were put up for sale.
Fishman was born in Russia and immigrated to Israel with his family when he was a child. The family settled in the south of the country. In recent years, there had been a deterioration in his health. He left behind a wife - Tova, and three children - Eyal, Anat and Ronit.
