Banker's $3.5m gift to MBAs

By DANIEL RIORDAN

An American investment banker has donated $3.5 million to Auckland University's new business school, with $1 million of the money targeted at Maori students.

Paul Kelly's donation means the university has raised about $7.5 million towards the $110 million it needs, with another $7.5 million loosely pledged or under discussion with other donors.

The initial target is $25 million, which the Government has said it will match.

Connecticut-based Kelly is chairman and chief executive of the diversified manufacturing company Knox Enterprises and president and chief executive of Knox & Co investment bank.

A member of the board of trustees of his Ivy League alma mater the University of Pennsylvania, he is a graduate of that university's world-renowned Wharton Business School.

As is common in such matters, serendipity played a big part in bringing Kelly and Auckland together.

The 62 year-old has owned property in New Zealand for 15 years, and in recent years has been developing 1200ha of land on the Karikari Peninsula, northeast of Kaitaia.

The property features a 400-head black angus cattle ranch, a golf course with accommodation catering to overseas tourists and the Carrington Estate winery and vineyard.

Kelly's business partner, architect Bob Haig, had his old friend Lindo Ferguson around for dinner one night a few months ago. Ferguson, a former Auckland University chancellor, mentioned the plans for the new business school.

Kelly said giving money to the venture suddenly made sense.

His family have a proud track record of philanthropy in the US, particularly in education.

"I had been thinking about making some sort of philanthropic contribution here, but wasn't sure where to do it," Kelly said.

"In the US, we tend to support the arts and humanities, because they tend to be underfunded, but here the place that seemed to make the most sense was business."

Of Kelly's $3.5 million, $1.5 million is for faculty enhancement, $1 million is for general student financial assistance and $1 million is for Maori student financial aid and management development.

Kelly explained that about 90 per cent of the 80 or or so workers employed on his Karikari property, either full time or on a semi-permanent contract basis, are Maori.

"I had noticed a number of them, while they haven't had the benefit of a tertiary education, are very resourceful and very creative.

"I thought I would like to do something whereby people in that immediate area as well as elsewhere would have some of these opportunities in the future."

Of the $110 million Auckland needs, $80 million is targeted for the building and $30 million for staff.

Business School dean Barry Spicer is mulling over challenging the business community and other private donors to match Kelly's money dollar for dollar.

The university made its plans public in February, and hopes to start moving to its new home, adjacent to the campus, by the end of 2004.

Although it currently offers part-time master of business administration courses to 7000 students, the university wants to boost its programme to full-time and put New Zealand on the world MBA map.

Understandably, the Government's pledge to support it financially has not gone down well with some other New Zealand universities which offer their own MBA courses.

Auckland says that if the country is to develop a truly world-renowned MBA programme, it has to focus its resources in one place and it makes sense to do it in the business hub of Auckland.