Chuck Feeney

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Charles Francis "Chuck" Feeney (born April 23, 1931 in Elizabeth , New Jersey ) is an American entrepreneur and philanthropist . He is the co-founder of the duty-free shop company DFS Group. Between 1982 and 2020, he donated over $ 8 billion to educational institutions and charitable causes through The Atlantic Philanthropies , which he financed .

Life

Charles Francis Feeney was born in New Jersey in 1931, the middle of three children to a family of Irish descent . His parents were the insurer Leo Feeney and the nurse Madaline Feeney.

During the Korean War he served in the US Air Force and then began studying at the Cornell School of Hotel Administration , which was only possible thanks to the benefits from the GI Bill . After completing his studies, Feeney went to France in 1956, where he continued his training in Grenoble . He later began selling tax-free alcohol to US Navy sailors.

Together with Cornell alumni Robert Warren "Bob" Miller , he began selling cars, perfume and jewelry to US soldiers and tourists in Asia in the 1950s, following the newly emerging concept of duty-free shopping . Tax attorney Tony Pilaro and accountant Alan Parker later joined the company as partners to make it more professional. The trading company Duty Free Shoppers was founded in 1960. The internationally active DFS Group emerged from the company . Just four years later, they had 200 employees in 27 countries. Above all, spurred on by the rapid economic development in Japan and the associated sharp rise in tourism figures in the Pacific region, DFS has developed into one of the most profitable retail companies. Feeney and Miller both became billionaires through the successful venture . They invested in hotels, retailers, textile companies and later in technology startups .

Inspired by his non-profit mother, and above all by Andrew Carnegie's essay The Gospel of Wealth , Feeney founded The Atlantic Foundation in 1982 , which later became the Bermuda- based foundation The Atlantic Philanthropies . Their investments were supervised by the financial investor General Atlantic , which was also founded by Feeney. In 1984 Feeney transferred his entire DFS share of 38.75% to the foundation. Until it closed in September 2020, the foundation invested over 8 billion US dollars in numerous educational institutions and charitable projects in the United States, Australia, Vietnam, Bermuda, South Africa and Ireland. Feeney himself always stayed in the background. The donations were made anonymously or the recipients of the donations were bound to strict confidentiality.

In 1988, Forbes took Feeney to number 31 on the annual Forbes 400 list , with alleged personal fortune of $ 1.3 billion , making him known to a wider public for the first time. In fact, at that time the asset was already significantly higher and the assets belonged to the foundation and no longer Feeney as a private person. Feeney's team failed to seek a reply, and he stayed on the Forbes list until 1996. In 1997 Feeney and his business partners Pilaro and Parker sold their shares in the DFS Group to the luxury goods company LVMH for $ 2.47 billion. Since Bob Miller refused to sell his stake and a legal dispute loomed between the partners, Feeney was able to prevent a disclosure of his financial circumstances and agreed to a conversation with the journalist Judith Miller , who wrote an article about Feeney in the New York Times . Only then did it become public knowledge that Feeney had transferred his entire stake to the foundation.

Bill Gates and Warren Buffett name Feeney's charitable commitment as an important impetus for establishing the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and the Giving Pledge . From 2005, Feeney had the author Conor O'Clery write his biography The Billionaire Who Wasn't: How Chuck Feeney Secretly Made and Gave Away a Fortune , which should make his principle "Giving while living" known to a wider audience and with he wanted to inspire other wealthy people to donate more money for charitable purposes while they were still alive. In 2014 Feeney was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences .

His first marriage to the Frenchwoman Danielle J. Feeney had four daughters and one son. His second marriage is to his former secretary Helga and lives in apartments in Dublin , Brisbane and San Francisco . His personal wealth is still around $ 2 million.

documentary

  • Secret Billionaire: The Chuck Feeney Story . 2009, Ireland, directed by Ciaran O'Connor

literature

  • Conor O'Clery: The Billionaire Who Wasn't: How Chuck Feeney Secretly Made and Gave Away a Fortune . PublicAffairs, 2007, ISBN 978-1586483913 .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Conor O'Clery: The Billionaire Who Wasn't: How Chuck Feeney Secretly Made and Gave Away a Fortune . PublicAffairs, 2007, ISBN 978-1586483913 , page 13 ff.
  2. ↑ a b c d e f g h i j k l Steven Bertoni: Chuck Feeney: The Billionaire Who Is Trying To Go Broke . In: forbes.com of October 8, 2012.
  3. ↑ Our History . In: dfs.com, accessed on November 10, 2020.
  4. ↑ To Entrepreneur, Always . In: atlanticphilanthropies.org, accessed October 21, 2020.
  5. ↑ Jim Dwyer: Out of Sight, Till Now, and Giving Away Billions . In: The New York Times, September 26, 2007.
  6. ↑ Our Story . In: generalatlantic.com, accessed October 21, 2020.
  7. ↑ Stephanie Strom: LVMH to Buy Duty-Free Empire for $ 2.47 Trillion . In: The New York Times, October 30, 1996.
  8. ^ Judith Miller : He Gave Away $ 600 Million, and No One Knew . In: The New York Times, January 23, 1997.
  9. ↑ Chuck Feeney . In: atlanticphilanthropies.org, accessed October 21, 2020.
  10. ^ Chuck Feeney on Giving While Living . In: youtube.com from June 17, 2014.
  11. ↑ Book of Members 1780 – present, Chapter F. (PDF; 815 kB) In: American Academy of Arts and Sciences (amacad.org). Retrieved October 21, 2020 .
  12. ↑ Michaela Haas : The man who gave away eight billion dollars . In: sz-magazin.sueddeutsche.de from October 13, 2020.
personal data
SURNAME Feeney, Chuck
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Feeney, Charles Francis
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American entrepreneur and philanthropist
DATE OF BIRTH April 23, 1931
PLACE OF BIRTH Elizabeth , New Jersey