Eli Broad Wiki, Wife, Net Worth, Cause of Death, Family, Children, Religion, Sons

Eli Broad Biography – Eli Broad Wiki

Eli Broad was an American entrepreneur and philanthropist. He helped build two Fortune 500 companies, KB Home and SunAmerica, and, with his wife, Edythe, created the Broad Foundations, which focus on public education reform, scientific and medical research, art and culture, and civic projects in Los Angeles.

At a young age, Broad delivered newspapers and helped out at his parents’ store after school. A stamp collector, he saw his first business opportunity at age 13. After buying a box full of stamps, he placed ads in magazines and sold them by mail.

At Michigan State University, he studied accounting, with a minor in economics, and completed his degree in three years, while earning money on the side by selling women’s shoes, hawking garbage disposal units door-to-door, delivering rolls of film to be developed, and operating a drill press at Packard Auto Company. He graduated in 1953, and became the youngest person to pass the CPA exam in the state of Michigan.

Broad joined an accounting firm but he was fired in part for refusing to wear a hat, as all CPAs did at the time. He then set up his own accounting firm and taught night classes in accounting at a technical college.

In 1956, Donald Kaufman and Broad launched a home-building company, Kaufman & Broad with $12,500 of startup capital. The home building company focused on first-time buyers and built no-frills houses without basements so they could be priced lower.

The company, now known as KB Home, spread across the country and eventually built homes in France as well. In 1971, KB bought Sun Life Insurance, a small Baltimore-based life insurance company for roughly $52 million in the hope that its steady earnings would help smooth out housing busts. The insurance company evolved into a major marketer of annuities, which Broad described as “mutual funds in life-insurance wrappers,” and became known as SunAmerica. Eli transformed Sun Life into the financial services company SunAmerica, separating it from Kaufman and Broad in 1989 and becoming its CEO. Eli left the board of Kaufman and Broad in 1995, and had no further ties to the company.

In 1998, Eli sold SunAmerica to American International Group Inc. agreed to buy SunAmerica i for $18 billion, earning $3 billion himself from the sale and joining the board of AIG. In 2005, Broad left the AIG board so that he could sell his AIG shares. Three years later, after a large market crash that would spur a long recession, AIG collapsed. At the time, Eli only had 10 percent of his net worth in the company.

After leaving the world of business following the sale of SunAmerica to AIG in 1999, Eli pursued a new career as a full-time philanthropist. He and his wife, Edye founded and funded numerous institutions in education, science and the arts. Through their foundation, the Broads established two programs to help develop and support public school system leaders and managers, the Broad Academy and the Broad Residency in Urban Education. They funded three stem cell centers in California and they invested more than $1 billion to create and endow the Broad Institute, a globally renowned genomic medicine research center in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Avid contemporary art collectors, they built The Broad, a museum in downtown Los Angeles, to hold their 2,000 artworks.

In 2016, Eli and Edye appointed Gerun Riley president of the foundation. After a year of working alongside Gerun to helm the foundation, on Oct. 12, 2017, Eli announced his retirement from the foundation.

Eli Broad Age

Eli Broad was born on June 6, 1933, in Bronx, New York. He died on April 30, 2021, in Los Angeles, California. He was 87.

Eli Broad Family

Eli Broad was born June 6, 1933, in New York, as the only child. His parents were Jewish immigrants from Lithuania. His father, Leon Broad, painted houses, and his mother, Rita Broad, was a seamstress. In 1940, the family moved to Detroit. Leon Broad opened a dime store there, and his wife kept the books.

Eli Broad Wife

Eli Broad was married to Edythe Broad (born Edythe Lawson) from 1954 to his death in 2021. Eli met the woman who would become his wife, Edythe “Edye” Lawson, during his final year of college. Edye Lawson was in her Senior year of high school when Eli received her phone number from a friend who thought the pair would make a good match. Eli cold called her, and to his surprise, she accepted. After a few dates, Eli proposed marriage and Edye said yes. They married in 1954. A few months after the wedding, he sold their wedding china to invest in land.

Eli Broad Children

Broad and his wife Edye had two sons, Jeffrey Broad and Gary Broad.

Eli Broad Death

Eli Broad died at the age of 87 on April 30, 2021, at Cedars-Sinai medical centre in Los Angeles following a long illness, confirmed Suzi Emmerling, a spokeswoman for the Eli and Edythe Broad Foundation.

“As a businessman Eli saw around corners, as a philanthropist he saw the problems in the world and tried to fix them, as a citizen he saw the possibility in our shared community, and as a husband, father and friend he saw the potential in each of us,” said Gerun Riley, president of The Eli and Edythe Broad Foundation.

Eli Broad Cause of Death

The cause of death was not revealed.

Eli Broad Net Worth

Eli Broad has an estimated net worth of $6.9 billion, according to Forbes.

Eli Broad Religion

Eli Broad was Jewish. He was born to parents who were Jewish immigrants from Lithuania.