Harvard to rename school post Forbes listed richest hedge fund CEO's $300m donation
2 min read . Updated: 12 Apr 2023, 07:08 PM IST
Premium- The Graduate School of Arts and Sciences will be now be renamed as the Harvard Kenneth C. Griffin Graduate School of Arts and Sciences.
Kenneth Griffin, the richest billionaire hedge fund manager according to Forbes, made a donation of $300 million to Harvard, following which the global top university has decided to rename their graduate school of arts and sciences after the billionaire.
“Kenneth Griffin ’89 has made a gift of $300 million to the Faculty of Arts and Sciences (FAS) to support the School’s mission and to advance cutting-edge research and expand access and excellence in education for students and scholars regardless of economic circumstances" wrote Harvard in their official statement.
The Graduate School of Arts and Sciences will be now be renamed as the Harvard Kenneth C. Griffin Graduate School of Arts and Sciences.
Griffin will be just the fourth individual to have a school at Harvard named after him in exchange for a donation, according to the Harvard Crimson student newspaper.
Griffin’s gift to Harvard was unrestricted, the school said, and will go to the faculty of arts and sciences, which includes the undergraduate college and PhD programs. In 2014, Griffin made a $150m donation to the elite private university, primarily to fund financial aid. At the time, it was the largest single donation in the institution’s history.
Griffin's name is posed to trigger controversy as the hedge fund manager is also a vocal Republican, a major political donor to rightwing politicians and his company’s investments in firearm and ammunition manufacturers.
The Chief Executive of Citadel LLC, Kenneth Griffin, posted the most profitable year of any hedge fund in history. Topping Forbes' list of richest billionaire hedge fund owners list published earlier this month, Griffin's net worth showed an estimated $35 billion, $7.8 billion more than a year ago and nearly triple what he was worth in 2020.
Citadel’s flagship Wellington fund gained 38% in 2022, while the S&P 500 fell nearly 20%, and the firm’s assets swelled so much that it returned $7 billion in profits to investors at the beginning of this year.
