<span id="midArticle_start"/>(Adds Breakingviews link)
<span id="midArticle_0"/>By Svea Herbst-Bayliss
<span id="midArticle_1"/>CAMBRIDGE, Mass., June 3 (Reuters) - Harvard University,which has educated many of the world's wealthiest investors, isnow getting its biggest single gift from one them - a $400million donation from Wall Street hedge fund investor JohnPaulson.
<span id="midArticle_2"/>The 59-year old financier said the gift was his way ofthanking the Ivy League school for providing him and others witha top flight education, to which he credits his success at his$19 billion firm Paulson & Co.
<span id="midArticle_3"/>"Today is an opportunity to thank Harvard," he said at aconference on campus announcing the donation to Harvard's Schoolof Engineering and Applied Sciences. Paulson earned a businessdegree from Harvard in 1980.
<span id="midArticle_4"/> <span class="first-article-divide"/>Nitin Nohria, the dean of the Harvard Business School, saidthe donation would place Boston at the center of U.S. innovationand "make those people on the West Coast tremble."
<span id="midArticle_5"/>The donation is the third record-sized gift Harvard hasreceived from alumni since last year, and comes two years intothe Ivy League school's five-year campaign to raise $6.5 billionin donations. The campaign has already topped $5 billion. Theschool's $36.4 billion endowment makes it the world's richestuniversity.
<span id="midArticle_6"/>In 2014, hedge fund executive Kenneth Griffin, who begantrading securities as a Harvard undergraduate in the 1980s, seta record with a $150 million gift. Only a few months later, theMorningside Foundation, led by Hong Kong venture capitalistsRonnie and Gerald Chan topped that with a $350 million donationto the School of Public Health, where Gerald earned his master'sand doctorate degrees.
<span id="midArticle_7"/> <span class="second-article-divide"/>The engineering and applied sciences school, which countsformer Microsoft Corp Chief Executive Officer SteveBallmer and NASA astronaut Stephanie Wilson among its graduates,will be renamed the Harvard John A. Paulson School ofEngineering and Applied Sciences.
<span id="midArticle_8"/>"John Paulson's extraordinary gift will enable the growthand ensure the strength of engineering and applied sciences atHarvard for the benefit of generations to come," HarvardPresident Drew Gilpin Faust said in a statement.
<span id="midArticle_9"/> <span class="third-article-divide"/>Paulson's best-known bet against an overheated housingmarket before the financial crisis netted his fund $15 billionand cemented his personal fortune, estimated by Forbes at $11.2billion.
<span id="midArticle_10"/>His flagship Paulson Partners fund has compounded at 13.6percent a year over the last two decades, handily beating theStandard & Poor's 500 index.
<span id="midArticle_11"/>In 2012, Paulson made his first prominent gift with a $100million donation to Central Park, near his New York City home.
<span id="midArticle_12"/>(Editing by Richard Valdmanis and Andre Grenon)
<span id="midArticle_13"/>
<span id="midArticle_0"/>By Svea Herbst-Bayliss
<span id="midArticle_1"/>CAMBRIDGE, Mass., June 3 (Reuters) - Harvard University,which has educated many of the world's wealthiest investors, isnow getting its biggest single gift from one them - a $400million donation from Wall Street hedge fund investor JohnPaulson.
<span id="midArticle_2"/>The 59-year old financier said the gift was his way ofthanking the Ivy League school for providing him and others witha top flight education, to which he credits his success at his$19 billion firm Paulson & Co.
<span id="midArticle_3"/>"Today is an opportunity to thank Harvard," he said at aconference on campus announcing the donation to Harvard's Schoolof Engineering and Applied Sciences. Paulson earned a businessdegree from Harvard in 1980.
<span id="midArticle_4"/> <span class="first-article-divide"/>Nitin Nohria, the dean of the Harvard Business School, saidthe donation would place Boston at the center of U.S. innovationand "make those people on the West Coast tremble."
<span id="midArticle_5"/>The donation is the third record-sized gift Harvard hasreceived from alumni since last year, and comes two years intothe Ivy League school's five-year campaign to raise $6.5 billionin donations. The campaign has already topped $5 billion. Theschool's $36.4 billion endowment makes it the world's richestuniversity.
<span id="midArticle_6"/>In 2014, hedge fund executive Kenneth Griffin, who begantrading securities as a Harvard undergraduate in the 1980s, seta record with a $150 million gift. Only a few months later, theMorningside Foundation, led by Hong Kong venture capitalistsRonnie and Gerald Chan topped that with a $350 million donationto the School of Public Health, where Gerald earned his master'sand doctorate degrees.
<span id="midArticle_7"/> <span class="second-article-divide"/>The engineering and applied sciences school, which countsformer Microsoft Corp Chief Executive Officer SteveBallmer and NASA astronaut Stephanie Wilson among its graduates,will be renamed the Harvard John A. Paulson School ofEngineering and Applied Sciences.
<span id="midArticle_8"/>"John Paulson's extraordinary gift will enable the growthand ensure the strength of engineering and applied sciences atHarvard for the benefit of generations to come," HarvardPresident Drew Gilpin Faust said in a statement.
<span id="midArticle_9"/> <span class="third-article-divide"/>Paulson's best-known bet against an overheated housingmarket before the financial crisis netted his fund $15 billionand cemented his personal fortune, estimated by Forbes at $11.2billion.
<span id="midArticle_10"/>His flagship Paulson Partners fund has compounded at 13.6percent a year over the last two decades, handily beating theStandard & Poor's 500 index.
<span id="midArticle_11"/>In 2012, Paulson made his first prominent gift with a $100million donation to Central Park, near his New York City home.
<span id="midArticle_12"/>(Editing by Richard Valdmanis and Andre Grenon)
<span id="midArticle_13"/>
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