A (Very) Good Catholic Boy
Thanks to Portfolio for pointing out an incredible story about IBM’s largest individual shareholder, the inconspicuous director of a funeral parlor in Binghamton, New York, who died recently at age 90 after leading a happily frugal life with his recently deceased wife. Evidently, the mother of the man, Robert McDevitt, was secretary to the president of the precursor to IBM in the early 1900s. When she died, she passed her shares along to her son. Now, an inventory of his property suggests he was sitting on $250 million -- nearly all of which he willed away to schools and organizations dear to his heart. Georgetown University, McDevitt’s alma mater and the nation’s oldest Catholic and Jesuit university, is getting the lion’s share of his estate. He bequested $75 million to the school, its biggest gift ever. He also left a big chunk to the Roman Catholic Diocese of Syracuse, including
