American billionaire Larry Gies pledges another $100 million to University of Illinois

American billionaire Larry Gies, the founder and chief executive of industrial holding company Madison Industries, has pledged another $100 million to the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, lifting his lifetime giving to the school to $350 million.

The new money goes to the Gies College of Business, which was named after him following a $150 million gift in 2017. Gies will match the next $100 million in qualifying donations to the college, which means the pledge could bring in as much as $200 million for scholarships, the student experience and faculty, the university said on Tuesday.

The commitment makes Gies the largest benefactor in the history of the Urbana-Champaign campus. The school said it is believed to be the largest matching gift ever made to a business school and one of the largest to any academic institution. It also ranks among the 10 largest single gifts to a business school and puts Gies among the three biggest lifetime donors to any U.S. business school.

"Gies Business has an incredible community of alumni and friends who believe in this College and the impact it can make," Gies said in the statement. "Every gift, at every level, can open a door for a student, support a great faculty member, or create an experience that changes someone's life."

He added: "This pledge is about creating impact with my fellow alumni that will long outlast us!"

W. Brooke Elliott, dean of the college, said the pledge is meant to draw in other donors. "What moves me most about this gift is the ripple effect it can create," she said. "Larry has already transformed this College in ways that will be felt for generations."

A third nine-figure gift

Gies graduated from the university with an accountancy degree in 1988. He and his wife, Beth, gave $150 million to the business school in 2017, and the college took his name. That gift is the second-largest single donation to any business school, according to the university.

In September 2025, he committed $100 million to the university's athletics department, the largest gift in its history. The university renamed its football venue Gies Memorial Stadium in recognition of the gift, which Gies dedicated to his late father, Larry Gies Sr., a U.S. Army veteran.

Gies is also president of the Gies Foundation, which funds education and health causes. He helped set up a campus of Chicago Jesuit Academy, a tuition-free school for children in grades three through eight on Chicago's West Side.

Built on industrial deals

Gies, 60, worked as an accountant at Touche Ross, now part of Deloitte, before joining investor Michael Heisley's Heico Companies, where he learned to buy and turn around struggling businesses. He started Madison Capital Partners in 1994, at age 27, funding his first deal with credit cards and a $50,000 loan from a high school friend.

The Chicago-based firm later moved away from the usual private equity model of buying and selling companies within a few years and began holding them for the long term. Madison has made more than 80 acquisitions in over 20 countries since 2004, building businesses in air filtration, ventilation, safety equipment, medical products and boat stabilizers. It sold its filtration unit, Filtration Group, to Parker-Hannifin for $9.25 billion.

His fortune rose sharply this year after Madison Air Solutions, the group's heating, ventilation and air-quality business, listed on the New York Stock Exchange in April. The company sold about 82.7 million shares at $27 each, raising about $2.2 billion in the largest U.S. initial public offering of the year at the time. Gies is chairman of Madison Air, which reported more than $3.3 billion in revenue in 2025.

Gies has a net worth of about $5.1 billion.