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Eli Broad, Billionaire Philanthropist, Dies at 87
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Eli Broad, the successful business leader who later help transform the arts, culture and architecture of Los Angeles, died Friday afternoon at 87.
The Eli and Edythe Broad Foundation, where Broad and his wife Edye have served as full-time philanthropists since 1999, announced Broad’s death.
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Broad amassed his wealth by creating two successful businesses: Kaufman and Broad Home Corporation, which Broad founded in 1957 at age 23 in Detroit, and later turned a life insurance company that he bought into SunAmerica. He bought the company for $52 million in the 1970s and sold it to AIG for $18 billion in 1999.
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Eli Broad made his billions building homes, and then he used that wealth and the considerable collection of world-class modern art he assembled with his wife to shape the city around him.
Dogged, determined and often unyielding, he helped push and prod majestic institutions such as Walt Disney Concert Hall and the Museum of Contemporary Art into existence, and then, that done, he created his own namesake museum in the heart of Los Angeles.
With a fortune estimated by Forbes at $6.9 billion, the New York native who made California his home more than 50 years ago flourished in the home construction and insurance industries before directing his attention and fortune toward an array of ambitious civic projects, often setting the agenda for what was to come in L.A.
Philanthropist and entrepreneur Eli Broad, who contributed millions of dollars to Michigan State University, died Friday at age 87, representatives announced.
Since 1999, Broad, who founded two Fortune 500 companies in different industries, and his wife, Edythe, had committed more than $5 billion with their foundations to support K-12 public education, scientific and medical research, and the visual and performing arts.
In 2014, Broad and his wife gave MSU a $25 million challenge grant to broaden the scope of the Eli Broad College of Business.
The gift brought the Detroit Public Schools alumni s total giving to MSU to nearly $100 million. As a businessman Eli saw around corners, as a philanthropist he saw the problems in the world and tried to fix them, as a citizen he saw the possibility in our shared community, and as a husband, father and friend he saw the potential in each of us,” said Gerun Riley, president of The Eli and Edythe Broad Foundation.