DAVID Sullivan is most closely associated with the ownership of Birmingham City Football Club and the Daily Sport and Sunday Sport “adult” newspapers.However, the bulk of his estimated £600million wealth is thought to have come from - and to be tied up in - the property sector.

By Duncan Brodie

DAVID Sullivan is most closely associated with the ownership of Birmingham City Football Club and the Daily Sport and Sunday Sport “adult” newspapers.

However, the bulk of his estimated £600million wealth is thought to have come from - and to be tied up in - the property sector.

Together with his co-owners at Birmingham City, brothers David and Ralph Gold, Mr Sullivan is in the process of selling the club to minority shareholder Carson Yeung in a deal valuing the club at £50million.

Hong Kong-based Mr Yeung has only until Christmas to complete the transaction but Mr Sullivan has stated that if the deal goes ahead he has no intention of staying on at the club.

Mr Sullivan, who had been involved at Birmingham for more than 14 years having helped rescue it from administration, has said that he plans to increase his investment in the horseracing industry instead - he already works with Irish trainer Brian Meehan - but he has persistently been linked in the media with a bid for another football club.

Ipswich Town has been high on the list of possibilities, with the club having made no secret of its need for an investor and Mr Sullivan owning a mansion in Essex, on the edge of Epping Forest.

Mr Sullivan was ranked 127th in the most recent Sunday Times Rich List, with an estimated net worth of £600million, including a property portfolio worth around £400million, although he does not make the top ten in a Football Rich List just published by FourFourTwo magazine.

That listing ranges from Chelsea owner Roman Abramovich in top place with estimated wealth of £10.8billion to Watford's Lord Ashcroft in tenth, on £950million.

According to the Sunday Times listing, Sport Newspapers- which Sullivan sold in August in a £50m reverse takeover deal - produced a profit of £2.4million on sales of £35.8million in its most recent a set of accounts, with Mr Sullivan's main company, Roldvale, generating a profit of £8.2million on turnover of £26.9m.

Mr Sullivan grew up in a working-class district on the edge of Cardiff and got his first experience of business selling football programmes on match days.

After pursuing a career as an advertising executive, he branched out into selling “glamour” pictures and this led eventually to the launch of the Daily Sport - co-funded by the Gold brothers, behind the Ann Summers chain - and a chain of licensed sex shops.

However, Mr Sullivan is said to have made his “serious” money from the property sector, with his portfolio reportedly boosted by the acquisition of a £36million chunk of Bath city centre earlier this year.