Hong Kong tycoons’ US$350m Harvard gifts among world’s top charity donations of the year
Two donations to Harvard University totalling US$350 million by two Hong Kong property tycoons have been named among the 10 biggest single charitable contributions this year.
Two donations to Harvard University totalling US$350 million by two Hong Kong property tycoons have been named among the 10 biggest single charitable contributions this year.
The donations, made by a foundation set up by Hang Lung Group chairman Ronnie Chan Chichung and his brother Gerald Chan Lok-chung, amounted to the third- and fourth-biggest single charitable contributions worldwide, according to a report compiled by analysts Wealth-X.
The gifts from the Morningside Foundation were also the largest received by the US university in its 378-year history.
Last September, the Chan brothers, who have a combined wealth of US$2.8 billion, handed over two cheques worth US$175 million. The pair are the only non-Americans on the list.
Heading the ranking is Warren Buffett's US$2.1 billion gift to the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, in the form of 16.6 million shares in his company, Berkshire Hathaway. Buffett is worth US$74 billion, Bloomberg says.
In second place, Nicholas Woodman, the boss of camera-maker GoPro, gave nearly US$500 million of his US$4.4 billion fortune to the Silicon Valley Community Foundation.
The Morningside Foundation's donation to Harvard's health school suited the Chan brothers' charitable remit of targeting improvements in education and public health. The brothers' mother was a nurse and Gerald Chan is a Harvard school of public health alumnus.
Ronnie Chan has vowed not to leave a penny to his children.
"In the final days of my late father in 1985, our family came to an unwritten consensus to donate the family wealth to charities except a certain amount to meet our mother's needs," Chan said.
Morningside's donations will help tackle pandemics and social issues.
Fellow Hong Kong tycoon Gordon Wu Ying-sheung, Hopewell Holdings' founder, gave more than US$100 million to Princeton, his alma mater, between 1995 and 2007. The top local donation to date was Li Ka-shing's HK$1 billion to the University of Hong Kong in 2005.
