Charles F. Feeney, a pioneer of duty-free outlets and a shrewd investor in know-how start-ups who gave away almost all of his $8 billion fortune to charity, a lot of it as quietly as he had made it, died on Monday in San Francisco. He was 92.
His demise was introduced by the Atlantic Philanthropies, a gaggle of foundations he had began and funded because the early Nineteen Eighties. He lived in a modest rented condominium in San Francisco.
In December 2016, along with his donation of $7 million to his alma mater, Cornell College, for scholar community-service work, Mr. Feeney formally emptied the Atlantic Philanthropies’ accounts. It additionally fulfilled his pledge to provide away just about all of his wealth earlier than he died, a rarity within the philanthropic world.
With what he known as first rate however unextravagant provisions made for his 5 grownup kids, Mr. Feeney stated he retained about $2 million for himself, a small fraction of the billions he had amassed over six a long time in enterprise and given away over 35 years whereas typically going to nice lengths to hide his id, wealth and philanthropies.
“Chuck Feeney is a exceptional function mannequin, and the final word instance of giving whereas residing,” his fellow billionaire Invoice Gates told Forbes in 2012. One other of the world’s richest folks, Warren Buffett, introduced a Forbes 400 Lifetime Achievement Award to Mr. Feeney in 2014, calling him “my hero and Invoice Gates’s hero — he ought to be everyone’s hero.”
In contrast to philanthropists whose names are publicized, celebrated at banquets and emblazoned on constructing facades and museum wings, Mr. Feeney gave anonymously to universities, medical establishments, scientific endeavors, human rights teams, peace initiatives and scores of causes meant to enhance lives in america, Vietnam, South Africa, Australia, Israel, Jordan and different lands.
An Irish American, he was much more open about his giving in Northern Eire, which he visited regularly. His assist to Sinn Fein, the Irish Republican Military’s political arm, and the Ulster Protection Affiliation, the Protestant loyalist paramilitary group, helped safe the Good Friday Settlement in 1998 after a long time of sectarian violence. In 2007, Mr. Feeney was invited to affix leaders of america, Britain and Eire on the beginning of a power-sharing authorities in Belfast.
However his identify appeared on not one of the 1,000 buildings on 5 continents that he gave $2.7 billion to fund. Grants to establishments and people have been paid by cashier’s checks to hide the supply. Beneficiaries have been informed that the cash got here from a beneficiant “consumer” who wished to stay nameless. Those that realized his id have been informed to not reveal his involvement.
His philanthropic organizations have been integrated in Bermuda to keep away from United States disclosure necessities, though the preparations disallowed United States tax deductions for his donations.
Mr. Feeney’s was a lifetime of exceptional contrasts. Raised in New Jersey by Roman Catholic working-class mother and father who struggled through the Despair, he served within the Air Drive, studied lodge administration in faculty and received into the duty-free procuring enterprise by promoting liquor, cigarettes and fragrance to homeward-bound American servicemen in Europe within the Nineteen Fifties.
The enterprise went world. Income have been huge. By the early Nineteen Eighties he was plowing tax-free annual dividends of $35 million into accommodations, land offers, retail outlets and clothes corporations. He later invested in tech start-ups and multiplied his earnings exponentially. By age 50, he had palatial properties in New York, London, Paris, Honolulu, San Francisco and Aspen, Colo., and on the French Riviera.
However he was troubled by an opulent lifetime of black-tie dinners, grand yachts and values removed from these of his household and pals in New Jersey.
“He was starting to have doubts about his proper to have a lot cash,” Conor O’Clery wrote in a biography of Mr. Feeney, “The Billionaire Who Wasn’t” (2007). “When requested a few years later if he was wealthy at this level in his life, he replied: ‘How a lot is wealthy? Past all expectations. Past all deserving, so to talk. I simply reached the conclusion with myself that cash, shopping for boats and all of the trimmings didn’t attraction to me.’”
Mr. Feeney reversed his extravagant life-style, quitting rich social teams, flying economic system class, shopping for his clothes off the rack and giving up fancy eating places. He offered his limousines and took subways or cabs. He additionally resolved to provide his cash away anonymously, a course adopted by just one p.c of American givers, specialists say.
“All Feeney’s instincts, instilled in him by the instance of his mother and father, by the sharing tradition of his blue-collar upbringing in New Jersey, by his need to not distance himself from his boyhood neighbors and pals, and by his personal innate kindness and concern for others, undoubtedly formed his determination,” Mr. O’Clery wrote.
It was in 1982 that Mr. Feeney established in Bermuda the inspiration that may turn out to be Atlantic Philanthropies. In 1984, he transferred to the inspiration his 38.75 p.c stake within the firm he had co-founded, Obligation Free Buyers. Since there was no sale, the corporate’s worth was speculative, however some estimates stated it might have exceeded $500 million.
Over the following a long time, as his different enterprises and earnings additionally went to the inspiration, Mr. Feeney funded public-health amenities in Vietnam; the College of Limerick and Trinity Faculty in Eire; AIDS clinics in South Africa; Operation Smile’s free surgical procedures for kids with cleft lips and palates; a medical campus for the College of California at San Francisco; and earthquake aid in Haiti. He gave $1 billion to Cornell, together with $350 million for an affiliated know-how institute in New York Metropolis.
His secret id as a humanitarian benefactor was disclosed in 1997 after he and a associate offered their curiosity in Obligation Free Buyers to Louis Vuitton Moët Hennessy. Authorized filings put the worth of his share at $1.6 billion and stated it belonged to not Mr. Feeney however to his philanthropic entity in Bermuda, which had been making big nameless donations for 15 years.
Charles Francis Feeney was born in Elizabeth, N.J., on April 23, 1931, to Leo and Madaline Feeney. His father was an insurance coverage underwriter who attended Mass each day. His mom was a nurse who discreetly helped others; every day, she gave a neighbor with Lou Gehrig’s illness a experience to a bus cease, pretending it was on her strategy to work. Charles and his sisters, Arlene and Ursula, grew up in a family that struggled to pay a $32 month-to-month mortgage.
Charles had a Catholic schooling, attending St. Genevieve’s Grammar College in Elizabeth and, on a scholarship, Regis Excessive College on the Higher East Facet of Manhattan. Sad there, he cheated on an examination, was expelled in his second 12 months and switched to St. Mary’s of the Assumption Excessive College in Elizabeth, graduating in 1949. He served 4 years within the Air Drive, largely with American occupation forces in Japan.
He graduated from Cornell’s College of Lodge Administration in 1956 and moved to Europe. In Barcelona, Spain, he met a fellow Cornell alumnus, Robert Miller, and fashioned a partnership to promote duty-free luxuries to American servicemen on their approach again to the states.
As postwar worldwide tourism burgeoned, the demand for duty-free items, together with automobiles, exploded. Obligation Free Buyers grew into a world enterprise, with outlets in airports and main cities throughout Europe, Asia and the Americas. Mr. Feeney grew to become a multibillionaire.
In 1959, he married Danielle Morali-Daninos, a French citizen, in Paris. After producing 5 kids, the wedding resulted in divorce within the Nineties. Mr. Feeney gave all seven of his properties and a big monetary settlement to his spouse. He later married his longtime assistant, Helga Flaiz.
She survives him, alongside along with his kids from his first marriage — his daughters Juliette Feeney-Timsit, Caroleen Feeney, Leslie Feeney Baily and Diane Feeney and his son, Patrick — in addition to 16 grandchildren.
In his final a long time Mr. Feeney didn’t personal a house or a automotive, wore a $10 wristwatch, most popular buses to taxis and, till he was 75, flew coach. He and his second spouse lived in a two-bedroom rented condominium in San Francisco.
In 2010, Mr. Gates and Mr. Buffett based the Giving Pledge, whose signatories, together with Mr. Feeney, promised to provide most of their wealth to charity, although not essentially of their lifetimes.
With just about all of his fortune gone, Mr. Feeney formally shut down Atlantic Philanthropies in 2020.
Forbes stated that no one among such riches had ever given away a fortune so utterly whereas nonetheless alive. However as Mr. Feeney stated as he signed on to the pledge: “I can’t consider a extra personally rewarding and applicable use of wealth than to provide whereas one resides, to personally dedicate oneself to significant efforts to enhance the human situation.”
