Moore said she and her husband, Richard Rainwater....

How Darla Moore’s gift to USC of $25 million ballooned to $37 million


Submitted by: John Warner on Aug 28, 2005 at 10:41 am

Tagged with: Academia

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How gift to USC of $25 million ballooned

Darla Moore’s endowment to business school in 1999 has grown to $37 million

By JAMES T. HAMMOND

Staff writer

Lake City native Darla Moore’s 1999 gift of $25 million to the University of South Carolina business school has grown to more than $37 million.

It also spins off more than $1.25 million in income each year for the school that now bears her name.

How did the money grow so fast?

“We put it in such good investments, it was a home run for the school,” Moore said, adding the money is being managed by a Texas hedge fund. “It’s in a hedge fund that we started 10 or 12 years ago. We just left it in that fund.”

Moore said she and her husband, Richard Rainwater, invest money in the fund, too.

The hedge fund, she said, is made up of stocks commonly traded in the market, but the stocks are traded actively by skilled traders.