Acroplex
02-23-2004, 01:19 AM
Cable TV billionaire giving away fortune
PHILADELPHIA, Pennsylvania (AP) -- H.F. "Gerry" Lenfest and his wife, Marguerite, have given away about a third of their $1 billion fortune over the past four years, and they say they want to give it all away before they die.
After four decades building a cable television business that made them one of America's wealthiest couples, the Lenfests are spending the profits on charity.
Their three children -- already wealthy from the sale of the cable business to Comcast -- will get no more money if the couple have their way. The couple also wants foundations that survive them to have spent every penny within 20 years of their deaths.
Gerry Lenfest, 73, said he saw many charitable institutions lose effectiveness after their founders died and decided the bulk of the family's fortune should not end up in long-lasting endowments.
"During your lifetime, you can direct how your wealth is spent for the most good," he said. "But after your death, it is problematic. You don't have the control."
So far, the couple have given or pledged about $325 million of their earnings from the sale of the cable business the family began building in 1974.
Columbia University, Wilson College and Washington and Lee University have each received gifts of between $16 million and $18 million. The Philadelphia Museum of Art, the Kimmel Center for the Performing Arts, and the Chesapeake Bay Foundation are among many organizations that have received Lenfest money.
Gerry Lenfest was a lawyer and an executive at Triangle Publications, a company owned by another philanthropist, Walter Annenberg, when he borrowed $2.3 million to buy a small cable television system in Lebanon, Pennsylvania.
When Lenfest sold the system to Comcast Corp. in 2000, it had grown to 1.2 million subscribers in Pennsylvania, New Jersey and Delaware. The sale netted the Lenfest family about $1.2 billion.
PHILADELPHIA, Pennsylvania (AP) -- H.F. "Gerry" Lenfest and his wife, Marguerite, have given away about a third of their $1 billion fortune over the past four years, and they say they want to give it all away before they die.
After four decades building a cable television business that made them one of America's wealthiest couples, the Lenfests are spending the profits on charity.
Their three children -- already wealthy from the sale of the cable business to Comcast -- will get no more money if the couple have their way. The couple also wants foundations that survive them to have spent every penny within 20 years of their deaths.
Gerry Lenfest, 73, said he saw many charitable institutions lose effectiveness after their founders died and decided the bulk of the family's fortune should not end up in long-lasting endowments.
"During your lifetime, you can direct how your wealth is spent for the most good," he said. "But after your death, it is problematic. You don't have the control."
So far, the couple have given or pledged about $325 million of their earnings from the sale of the cable business the family began building in 1974.
Columbia University, Wilson College and Washington and Lee University have each received gifts of between $16 million and $18 million. The Philadelphia Museum of Art, the Kimmel Center for the Performing Arts, and the Chesapeake Bay Foundation are among many organizations that have received Lenfest money.
Gerry Lenfest was a lawyer and an executive at Triangle Publications, a company owned by another philanthropist, Walter Annenberg, when he borrowed $2.3 million to buy a small cable television system in Lebanon, Pennsylvania.
When Lenfest sold the system to Comcast Corp. in 2000, it had grown to 1.2 million subscribers in Pennsylvania, New Jersey and Delaware. The sale netted the Lenfest family about $1.2 billion.