May 26, 2025
SINGAPORE – The biggest donations in Singapore have traditionally gone to universities and hospitals here.
In April, it was reported that Nanyang Technological University received $110 million from UOB and the Wee Foundation, which was set up by the bank’s former chairman, the late Mr Wee Cho Yaw.
The gift would go towards supporting three new programmes, including the NTU Opportunity Grant where undergraduates in need can get up to $10,000 to pay for their campus accommodation and overseas exchanges, among other things.
This is the second-largest donation the university has received. In 2011, the Lee Foundation gave $150 million to NTU to start its medical school, the Lee Kong Chian School of Medicine.
The late Mr Lee Kong Chian, who was known as the rubber and pineapple king for the businesses he ran, started the Lee Foundation in 1952.
The National University of Singapore is also a recipient of some of the biggest donations here.
Its Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy received $101 million in 2023 from the Low Tuck Kwong Foundation to support public officers from Asia and provide scholarships for students in the region.
The foundation, named after coal tycoon Low Tuck Kwong, is one of the new philanthropic foundations in Singapore set up in the past three years by some of the richest people in the world.
Others include the Dalio Foundation by American hedge fund billionaire Ray Dalio and his family, and the Elaine and Eduardo Saverin Foundation by Facebook co-founder Eduardo Saverin.
The sum given by the Low Tuck Kwong Foundation is just slightly more than the $100 million Hong Kong tycoon Li Ka Shing donated to the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy in 2007.
Back in 2005, the NUS Medical School received a $100 million gift from the Yong Loo Lin Trust and was renamed the NUS Yong Loo Lin School of Medicine.
Mr Yong Loo Lin was born in Malaysia, graduated as a doctor from the University of Hong Kong, and became a successful businessman in Hong Kong. He died in 1959.
In 2011, the family of the late property tycoon Ng Teng Fong, the founder of Far East Organization, donated $125 million to a new hospital. Jurong General Hospital was renamed the Ng Teng Fong General Hospital in honour of the gift.
The family of another tycoon, Mr Khoo Teck Puat, also donated $125 million in 2007 towards the building of a new hospital in Yishun. The bulk of the sum went towards the construction cost of the Khoo Teck Puat Hospital, and the remainder was for a welfare fund to help poor patients.
The late Mr Khoo was a banker and hotelier whose family owns the Goodwood Group of Hotels.