Allan Gray founder donates family interests in investment firms to newly established Allan & Gill Gray Foundation

Allan WB Gray, the founder of Allan Gray and its offshore partner Orbis, has announced that the newly established Allan & Gill Gray Foundation has been endowed with his family’s controlling interests in the Allan Gray and Orbis groups.

“The Allan & Gill Gray Foundation will serve two equally important purposes: Firstly we want to maintain the company continuity, independence and commercial success by ensuring that we continue to serve our clients’ best long-term interests and secondly, to devote the dividends from its controlling shareholdings exclusively to philanthropy,” says Ian Liddle, chairman of Allan Gray.

Liddle notes that the perpetual nature of the ownership structure empowers the executives of the investment management firms to focus entirely on doing what is in the best long-term interests of clients, free from the short-term pressures that third-party ownership can bring.

Liddle goes on to explain that Gray considers this “both the right thing to do and a small but necessary contribution toward a society full of hope for all humanity.”

Allan & Gill Gray Foundation is a new initiative, not to be confused with the long-standing Allan Gray Orbis Foundation.

“We will continue to fund the education of high potential scholars through our donations and dividends to the Allan Gray Orbis Foundation, which also stands ready to finance the entrepreneurial ventures of graduating Allan Gray fellows,” says Liddle.

“It is gratifying to hear reports of how the Allan Gray Orbis Foundation has created opportunities and changed lives. We expect its impact to continue to grow. But if we continue to excel and retain our clients’ trust and confidence, the new Allan & Gill Gray Foundation should ultimately have an even larger impact,” Liddle concludes.