Billionaire John Paulson and the Paulson Family Foundation are donating $100 million to the Central Park Conservancy, according to a news release Tuesday.
Paulson, 56, is founder of Paulson & Co., a New York-based hedge fund that manages $21 billion across 10 funds. Paulson was worth $11.8 billion yesterday, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. His firm earned $15 billion in 2007 betting against the subprime mortgage market.
Paulson was raised in the middle-class Beechhurst section of Bayside, in New York’s Queens borough. He was valedictorian at New York University and attended Harvard Business School.
After working in risk arbitrage at Bear Stearns Cos., Odyssey Partners and Gruss Partners, Paulson founded Paulson & Co. in 1994, with $2 million from friends and family.
Paulson in 2009 donated $20 million to New York University Stern School of Business and the following year, along with his wife, Jenny, donated $5 million to Southampton Hospital in New York, which named an emergency department after them.
Paulson in 2010 also donated $15 million to a children’s and maternity hospital in Guayaquil, Ecuador, according to a Nov. 21, 2010 statement.
The Central Park Conservancy was founded in 1980, according to its website. Its mission was to restore as America’s foremost urban public space, as envisioned by its 19th-century designers, Frederick Law Olmsted and Calvert Vaux. In 1998, the Conservancy and the City of New York signed a management agreement formalizing their then 18-year public-private partnership.
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