David Gilmour, who brought Fiji’s water to the masses, dies at age 91

His first business was importing modern, streamlined Scandinavian housewares and furniture. He followed that in 1958 with the start-up clear tone sound, a collaboration with Peter Munk, a Hungarian-born electrical engineer. The company made critically acclaimed, cutting-edge hi-fi systems with buyers including Frank Sinatra and Hugh Hefner. But it foundered after branching out into televisions and disastrously shifting operations to Nova Scotia.

Amid heavy losses, Mr. Gilmour and Mr. Munk were forced out of the company in 1968 and later settled a lawsuit alleging that they had sold stock before announcing poor quarterly results in 1967.

They quickly recovered and in 1969 started Southern Pacific Properties, which had more than 50 hotels in Australia, New Zealand, Fiji, New Caledonia, Tahiti and other islands. An ambitious development that was to be built near the pyramids in Giza, Egypt was finally rejected in 1978 by President Anwar Sadat.

Three years later, Tan Sri Khoo Teck Puat, a Singaporean banker bought Southern Pacific for a reported $130 million, but Wakaya remained owned separately by Mr. Gilmour and his partners, until Mr. Gilmour bought them out.

In the early 1980s, Mr. Gilmour and Mr. Munk to the original partners in Barrick Gold, one of the world’s largest gold producers. Mr. Munk was the long-time chairman and CEO, and Mr. Gilmour was a board member until 2001. Mr. Munk passed away in 2018.

Mr. Gilmour described his working relationship with Mr. Munk in 2008 with The Globe and Mail of Toronto. “I’m more of the entrepreneurial type who likes challenges at startup, and Peter likes to grow a behemoth,” he said. “Once it reaches critical mass, I get a little bored sitting at an executive table.”

Marketed as a luxury brand, Fiji water was a huge commercial success but, like other brands, drew scorn from environmentalists, who criticized the industry for its energy use and greenhouse gases released in making and shipping plastic bottles , and because of the plastic waste they produce. leave behind. Fiji in particular was chosen for shipping water to consumers thousands of miles away.