- Richard C. Blum helped buy Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus in 1967 for $8 million and sold it to Mattel in 1971 for roughly $40–50 million, a ~5× return.
- The deal became a defining early win that helped establish his reputation and paved the way to founding Blum Capital Partners.
- After witnessing poverty in the Himalayas, he launched the American Himalayan Foundation to fund health, education, and anti-trafficking efforts in the region.
- He later backed institutional anti-poverty work at UC Berkeley by endowing the Blum Center for Developing Economies with major multi-million-dollar gifts.
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The Ringling Bros. investment remains one of Blum’s most illustrative early moves. In 1967, as part of a group with Irvin Feld, Israel Feld, and Judge Roy Hofheinz, Blum helped acquire the iconic circus for $8 million while at Sutro & Co., then sold it four years later to Mattel for between $40 million and $50 million—a gain of roughly 5×. This deal launched Blum’s profile as a deal-maker and underpinned his later founding of Blum Capital Partners in 1975.
However, Blum’s legacy is far broader than that single trade. His travel in the Himalayas during the 1960s and 1970s exposed him to extreme poverty; these experiences later inspired major philanthropic structures including the American Himalayan Foundation (AHF) and its missions of healthcare, education, cultural preservation, and protection from human trafficking in Nepal and Tibet.
At UC Berkeley, he pushed for institutional responses to poverty, establishing the Blum Center for Developing Economies in 2006, and making additional multi-million dollar gifts (e.g. $12 million in 2019) for endowed chairs and student programs. These endeavors illustrate a dual strategy: leveraging private capital and public institutions to address global inequality.
Strategically, Blum’s investment and philanthropic arcs offer several implications for investors and institutions: early commitment to contrarian or undervalued assets (like legacy entertainment brands) can yield outsized returns; integrating mission-oriented goals can enhance legacy and institutional influence; and personal values shaped by formative experience (e.g. witnessing poverty firsthand) can inform consistent, durable philanthropic strategy.
Open questions remain: to what extent did Blum’s wealth-creation enable versus constrain his philanthropy; how replicable is his pathway for today’s investors who lack major early capital; and how sustainable are philanthropy models tied to single wealthy patrons in light of evolving social, regulatory, and economic pressures.
Supporting Notes
– In 1967 the buyer group included Blum and his partners Felds and Hofheinz.
– Blum founded the American Himalayan Foundation in 1980; this organization now serves roughly 300,000 people annually in Himalayan regions through schools, hospitals, cultural preservation, and anti-trafficking programs.
– In 2006, he donated $15 million to establish the Blum Center for Developing Economies at UC Berkeley; in 2019, he added $12 million for an endowed chair.
– The Blum Center has graduated nearly 1,000 students via its Global Poverty & Practice program, deploying practicums across more than 70 countries.
– Blum was born in 1935, grew up in San Francisco; earned BS (1958) and MBA (1959) from UC Berkeley, worked at Sutro & Co. before creating his own firm Blum Capital in 1975.
– His investment firm, Blum Capital, focused on long-term value in public and private equity, especially in small-cap and middle-market companies, while simultaneously supporting public policy and educational institutions.
– He passed away on February 27, 2022, leaving behind both a business and philanthropic legacy.