Allan Gray

Allan William Buchanan Gray (8 April 1938 – 10 November 2019) was a South African billionaire businessman and philanthropist. He founded the eponymous investment management company, the nonprofit Allan Gray Orbis Foundation, and the Allan and Gill Gray Charitable Trust.

Before he donated his stake in the Allan Gray investment management company, his net worth was estimated to have been US$1.8 billion in 2017.

Early life Gray was born in the South African city of East London in 1938. His family had migrated from Aberdeen, Scotland to the then Cape Colony town of Butterworth in the 1890s.

His grandmother was the first female mayor in South Africa, when she was elected mayor of Butterworth years later and had attended the University of Aberdeen. Gray was known to be dyslexic.

By 2015, Orbis was managing over $30 billion in assets. Similarly, Orbis's sister company, Allan Gray grew to be South Africa's largest privately held investment management firm, managing over $35 billion in client capital, making Gray one of Africa's richest men, with a net worth above $2 billion. The return on investment from Allan Gray and Orbis since its founding is comparable in success to Warren Buffett's firm Berkshire Hathaway.

Philanthropy Gray established the Allan Gray Foundation in 2007 with a US$130 million endowment to fund bursaries and scholarships for talented South African high school students. This was the largest single recorded donation to a charity in South Africa at the time.

In 1979 Gray founded the Allan and Gill Gray Charitable Trust.

In 2016, Gray donated his entire stake in his company to the Allan and Gill Gray Charitable Trust so that dividends from his share in both the South African company and the Orbis Group can be exclusively used for philanthropic purposes.

Awards and honours In 2012 Gray was awarded an honorary doctorate from the University of Cape Town.

He died of a heart attack in Bermuda on 10 November 2019.