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David Gilmour, entrepreneur behind Fiji water, dies at 91

The Canadian-born businessman built a luxury resort on an island he owned in Fiji, and later created the bottled water brand popular in the U.S.
David Gilmour, entrepreneur behind Fiji water, dies at 91
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Canadian-born entrepreneur David Gilmour, the businessman behind the popular bottled water brand Fiji Natural Artesian Water, has died. He was 91.

The New York Times reported that he died earlier this month, on June 11, in New York City. 

His friend and partner in business, David Roth, said he died from complications after cardiac arrest, the Times reported

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Gilmour started the bottled water brand, seen at luxury events and sold in stores around the United States, after he built a luxury resort on a tiny island in Fiji that he owned. 

He started the company in 1996, marketing it as the "Earth's finest water" collected and bottled from an "ancient artesian aquifer" in Fiji. 

Gilmour was part of projects in the South Pacific to erect a chain of hotel locations. 

He focused in, though, on the island of Wakaya where, in 1990, he and his wife Jill opened the Wakaya Club & Spa. 

Gilmour had earlier bought a gold mine in Northern Ontario and founded a company around it called Barrick Gold Corp., which became the world's largest. 

He was born in Winnipeg, Manitoba in Canada in 1931, and his family later moved to Toronto in 1934.

Gilmour's daughter Erin was murdered in her apartment in Toronto in 1983. 


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