From CNBC: On a cool summer afternoon at Dublin’s Heuston
Station, Chuck Feeney, 81, gingerly stepped off a train on his journey back
from the University of Limerick, a 12,000-student college he willed into
existence with his vision, his influence and nearly $170 million in grants, and
hobbled toward the turnstiles on sore knees. No commuter even glanced twice at
the short New Jersey native, one hand holding a plastic bag of newspapers, the
other grasping an iron fence for support. The man who arguably has done more for
Ireland than anyone since Saint Patrick slowly limped out of the station
completely unnoticed. And, according to a report in Forbes, that’s just how Feeney likes it...
Chuck Feeney is the James Bond of philanthropy. Over the
last 30 years he’s crisscrossed the globe conducting a clandestine operation to
give away a $7.5 billion fortune derived from hawking cognac, perfume and
cigarettes in his empire of duty-free shops. His foundation, the Atlantic
Philanthropies, has funneled $6.2 billion into education, science, health care,
aging and civil rights in the U.S., Australia, Vietnam, Bermuda, South Africa
and Ireland. Few living people have given away more, and no one at his wealth
level has ever given their fortune away so completely during their lifetime.
The remaining $1.3 billion will be spent by 2016, and the foundation will be
shuttered in 2020. While the business world’s titans obsess over piling up as
many riches as possible, Feeney is working double time to die broke.
Feeney embarked on this mission in 1984, in the middle of a
decade marked by wealth creation–and conspicuous consumption–when he slyly
transferred his entire 38.75% ownership stake in Duty Free Shoppers to what
became the Atlantic Philanthropies. “I concluded that if you hung on to a piece
of the action for yourself you’d always be worrying about that piece,” says
Feeney…
.
Read all about it at http://www.forbes.com/sites/stevenbertoni/2012/09/18/chuck-feeney-the-billionaire-who-is-trying-to-go-broke/
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