Joan Tisch

With Wilma Tisch controls family fortune built by their late husbands, famed investors Preston and Laurence Tisch. Duo started with small New Jersey hotel 1946. Acquired Loews Theatres 1959. Today publicly traded Loews Corp. holding company includes diverse assortment of investments: oil drilling (Diamond Offshore), natural gas pipelines (Boardwalk), insurance (CNA). Sold Bulova watch group to Citizen for $250 million in January; spun off cigarette maker Lorillard (Newport, Kent) to Carolina Group last December. Loews stock down 9% in the past 12 months. Joan Hyman Tisch was a native New Yorker, born in 1927. She graduated from the University of Michigan in 1948 with a BA in English. That same year she married Bob Tisch, who also graduated from Univ. of Michigan in 1948. She inherited her fortune from her late husband (d.2005), who with his brother Laurence Tisch gained control of Loews Theaters in 1959 and created the parent company Loews. Bob purchased 50% of the Giants NFL team in 1991 for $75 million from Wellington Mara, the father of Giants’ CEO John Mara. Twenty six years later, team’s net value is around 2.8 billion, making Joan’s half worth roughly $1.4 billion. The Tisch family is one of America’s wealthiest. Joan's sister-in law Wilma Tisch is also a billionaire; Wilma's son James has been president and CEO of Loews since 1998. A committed philanthropist and anti-AIDS advocate, Joan Tisch funded construction of the Tisch Building at Gay Men's Health Crisis in Manhattan in 1997. In 2011, she donated an undisclosed amount to create the Joan H. Tisch Center For Women's Health at NYU, one of several Tisch-named entities at NYU. Thirty five years ago, Bob, along with his brother Laurence, donated $7.5 million to NYU’s School of Arts, a world-renowned art conservatory now known as The Tisch School of the Arts. Joan Tisch is survived by three children – Giants’ chairman Steve; Laurie, a member of the Giants' board of directors; and Jonathan, the Giants’ treasurer – as well as 10 grandchildren and three great-grandchildren.