Kiwi Philanthropist Donates Website Windfall To Charity
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A New Zealand economist, Gareth Morgan, who pocketed a cool $NZ47m ($29m, £17m) from the sale of his son's internet auction site, has pledged to donate it all to charity.
The website, Trade Me, which Mr Morgan had a 6.7% stake in, was sold to Fairfax, a New Zealand based publisher, for a total of $NZ670m.
"I just can't think of anything to do with it," Mr Morgan said. "It's like winning lotto 50 times, it's so out of proportion. We're just ordinary people."
Mr Morgan, speaking on New Zealand television, explained that he just didn't know what to do with all the cash and that the responsibility was too large for a man of his age.
"You either invest in new ventures and that was the sort of stuff I did when I was younger but I'm sort of too old for that hassle now, so it's time to do more charity stuff."
The 52-year old grandfather will now setup a charitable foundation with his wife to administer the distribution of the money to charities. Mr Morgan now has to decide which charities to give to.
Philanthropy of course is nothing new but this sort of total philanthropy where an entire net wealth is donated to charity is out of the ordinary. According to the BusinessWeek 50 Most Generous Philanthropists of 2005 the highest giver on the list, as a percentage of net worth, was Veronica Atkins, widow of Dr. Robert 'Atkins Diet' Atkins, who has donated 1,000% of her remaining net worth of $50m to charity. Bill Gates is the highest in the tech sector, donating 159% of his $4.6bn remaining net worth.
According to the same survey nearly one-third of the top 50 philanthropists are now from the tech sector. Many of the names are well known, Bill Gates (#2, Microsoft, $5.5bn pledged) was surprisingly usurped by Gordon Moore (#1, Intel, $7bn pledged) and others include Michael Dell (#9, Dell Computers, $933m), Pierre Omidyar (#19, eBay, $433m), Paul Allen (#25, Microsoft, $291m) and David Duffield (#35, PeopleSoft, £201m).
It seems that tech philanthropists, as opposed to previous business barons who let their wealth gather dust until they did, prefer to treat their bequests as they did their business interests. They demand results and ROI while they are still alive. Not a bad thing one thinks.
"I just can't think of anything to do with it," Mr Morgan said. "It's like winning lotto 50 times, it's so out of proportion. We're just ordinary people."
Mr Morgan, speaking on New Zealand television, explained that he just didn't know what to do with all the cash and that the responsibility was too large for a man of his age.
"You either invest in new ventures and that was the sort of stuff I did when I was younger but I'm sort of too old for that hassle now, so it's time to do more charity stuff."
The 52-year old grandfather will now setup a charitable foundation with his wife to administer the distribution of the money to charities. Mr Morgan now has to decide which charities to give to.
Philanthropy of course is nothing new but this sort of total philanthropy where an entire net wealth is donated to charity is out of the ordinary. According to the BusinessWeek 50 Most Generous Philanthropists of 2005 the highest giver on the list, as a percentage of net worth, was Veronica Atkins, widow of Dr. Robert 'Atkins Diet' Atkins, who has donated 1,000% of her remaining net worth of $50m to charity. Bill Gates is the highest in the tech sector, donating 159% of his $4.6bn remaining net worth.
According to the same survey nearly one-third of the top 50 philanthropists are now from the tech sector. Many of the names are well known, Bill Gates (#2, Microsoft, $5.5bn pledged) was surprisingly usurped by Gordon Moore (#1, Intel, $7bn pledged) and others include Michael Dell (#9, Dell Computers, $933m), Pierre Omidyar (#19, eBay, $433m), Paul Allen (#25, Microsoft, $291m) and David Duffield (#35, PeopleSoft, £201m).
It seems that tech philanthropists, as opposed to previous business barons who let their wealth gather dust until they did, prefer to treat their bequests as they did their business interests. They demand results and ROI while they are still alive. Not a bad thing one thinks.
