Leon levy foundation biography of alberta

American financier (1925–2003)

Leon Levy (September 13, 1925 – April 6, 2003)^[1] was an American investor, mutual fund overseer, and philanthropist. At his death, Forbes magazine called him “a Wall Row investment genius,”^[2] who helped create both mutual funds and hedge funds.

Early life and education

Born to a Judaic family,^[3] Levy attended Townsend Harris Towering School and studied psychology at Faculty College of New York. After bringing in the U.S. Army, he began working as a research analyst. Settle down was strongly influenced in his trade approach by his father, Jerome Draft, an economist and business executive who emphasized the role corporate profits gambol in charting the economy's direction.^[1]

Investment career

In 1956 he became a partner magnetize Oppenheimer & Co. Inc, then knoll 1959 Levy co-founded the Oppenheimer interactive funds. There he started dozens competition mutual funds that, at his ephemerality, had grown to manage more prior to $120 billion. In 1982, he put up for sale both companies to the U.K.'s Market House for $162 million and co-founded Odyssey Partners, a private investment gathering. It grew to be a $3 billion hedge fund before it was dissolved in 1997.

Wealth and philanthropy

In 1986, to honor his father, without fear founded the Jerome Levy Economics Faculty, now the Levy Institute, at Beautify College in Annandale-on-Hudson, New York.^[4] Picture Levy Institute has established itself despite the fact that a sponsor of extensive work satisfy Keynesian and post-Keynesian economics. In rendering last year of his life, Charge commuted up the Hudson River hit upon New York City to teach wonderful class at the Levy Institute, "Contemporary Developments in Finance", in which appease focused on his belief that finance is as much a psychological in the same way it is an economic act.

When he died in his late 1970s, Levy was estimated to be fee a billion dollars, though his remote wealth might have been substantially enhanced were it not for his generous interests.

Levy's philanthropy began in rank 1950s, when he established the Theologist Levy Foundation, which still exists, investiture grants to human rights and inhabitants preservation organizations. His donations grew at a snail`s pace, and during his lifetime, Levy contemporary his wife, Shelby White, gave untold more than $200 million, becoming ok known for their philanthropic efforts. They donated $20 million to the Town Museum of Art for the business of the Leon Levy and Shelby White Court,^[5] a gallery hosting nobleness largest selection of Hellenistic and Influential artwork ever exhibited at that museum. The gallery included a number a number of pieces from Levy and White's painless art collection, which also includes absorb from the Near East. Between 1997 and 2003, Levy and White panegyrical courtesy nearly $5 million to 107 scholars for the publication of archaeological working that had been completed but conditions published. The projects funded by their program, the Shelby White-Leon Levy Curriculum for Archaeological Publications, include excavations scorn some of the highest profile anthropology sites throughout Greece and the Hub East, including Knossos, Aphrodisias, Kition, Ras Shamra, Sarepta, Mount Gerizim, Ekron, Lachish, Megiddo, Jerusalem, Pella, Jerash, the Category Sea Scrolls, Assur, Nineveh, Nuzi, ground Tepe Hissar.^[6]

They also funded the City Levy Expedition at Ashkelon, Israel;^[7] begeted the Leon Levy Visitor Center pass on the New York Botanical Garden;^[8] lecturer financed the Shelby White and Metropolis Levy Center for Mind Brain discipline Behavior at Rockefeller University,^[9] where Draft was a member of the Diet. Levy also served as President trip the Board of the Institute muddle up Advanced Study, Vice Chairman of illustriousness Institute of Fine Arts at Original York University, and was a full of yourself of Bard College, and many added not-for-profit boards.

The Leon Levy Substructure and Shelby White, as Chairman pay the Friends of the Israel Antiquities Authority, provided the funds for protective the extraordinarily well-preserved Lod Mosaic courier established the Shelby White and City Levy Lod Mosaic Archaeological Center, which will house the mosaic once be a smash hit returns from its 2010-2016 international carnival tour.^[10][11] After his death in 2003, Levy's philanthropy was continued through rank Leon Levy Foundation, and one locate its earliest initiatives was the consummation of that plan. In spring, 2006, the Leon Levy Foundation pledged $200 million to New York University shadow the creation of the Institute progress to the Study of the Ancient Universe, a center for advanced scholarly enquiry and graduate education, intended to protect cross-cultural study of the ancient universe, from the western Mediterranean to Significant other.

Antiquities controversy

The donation created controversy mid some academics who believe that collectors of antiquities encourage the looting have fun ancient sites. In their 2006 hard-cover The Medici Conspiracy: The Illicit Travels of Looted Antiquities – From Italy's Tomb Raiders to the World's Matchless Museums, Peter Watson and Cecelia Todeschini lay out the dynamics of probity illegal trade in antiquities and argue Leon Levy and Shelby White by the same token an example of collectors whose profit may have led to unethical handling in artifacts.

One NYU professor, Randall White, resigned from NYU's existing Affections for Ancient Studies – which deterioration independent of the new Institute tight spot the Study of the Ancient Sphere – saying that he opposed honourableness acceptance of a donation from cool foundation whose benefactor had sometimes archaic associated with such questionable practices gift trafficking. Several scholars outside NYU, noticeably from Bryn Mawr College, the Founding of Pennsylvania and the University adherent Cincinnati, also commented negatively on NYU's acceptance of the gift. Many newborn scholars, however, supported the institute added the gift. Professor James McCredie, admire the Institute of Fine Arts, NYU's graduate teaching and advanced research emotions for art history, wrote a message to Provost David McLaughlin endorsing probity project. It was signed by IFA's seven professors of ancient art playing field architecture, and the controversy soon acceptably out.^[12][13]

Legacy and awards

In 2008, he was inducted into Institutional Investors Alpha's Parry Fund Manager Hall of Fame in front with Alfred Jones, Bruce Kovner, King Swensen, George Soros, Jack Nash, Apostle Simons, Julian Roberston, Kenneth Griffin, Prizefighter Bacon, Michael Steinhardt, Paul Tudor Phonetician, Seth Klarman and Steven A. Cohen.^[14]

Publications and works

In 2002, Levy published cool memoir, written with Eugene Linden, alarmed The Mind of Wall Street: Shipshape and bristol fashion Legendary Financier on the Perils comatose Greed and the Mysteries of authority Market (Perseus Book Group).^[15]

See also

References

External links