Eli Broad

Arts and education philanthropist Eli Broad today will announce his largest investment to date in Los Angeles charter schools, $23.3 million to jump-start at least 17 new campuses run by two major charter-school organizations. Broad's gift is believed to be the largest by any private donor to local charter schools and underscores his goal of creating effective schools outside the direct jurisdiction of the Los Angeles Unified School District. L.A.

LACMA trustee and donor Eli Broad talks to Suzanne Muchnic about his favorite work in the inaugural exhibition at BCAM: Richard Serra's 'Band' I have followed Richard's work for many years. But I was really blown away by the exhibition he had at the Museum of Modern Art in New York. I thought "Band" was the best work in the show, and I was pleased to be able to buy it for LACMA. There is nothing like Richard's work going on in sculpture in the world.

You know that well-worn architectural saying: A great building requires a great client. In the case of Renzo Piano's extension of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, which opens Feb. 16, the equation isn't quite so straightforward. To begin with, LACMA has added substantially more than a single building.

Eli Broad says -- without providing details -- that he is prepared to ante up $30 million to help L.A.'s Museum of Contemporary Art out of its financial crisis. At the same time, the museum announced Friday afternoon that the California attorney general's office is looking into its finances. Broad, in an opinion piece published in today's Times, writes: "I'd like to make a proposal to the MOCA board and to the civic angels of Los Angeles. I'll step up if you do too.

As Eli Broad wrote in the Opinion pages last Saturday, Los Angeles is "not a one-philanthropist town." It isn't, but it sure can seem that way. When this city's civic institutions struggle, it's Broad to whom the leadership reflexively turns. Charter schools, museums and the occasional newspaper all have imagined him as their savior, to the point that spending Broad's money is close to a parlor game in certain civic circles. The latest flailing cultural center is the Museum of Contemporary Art.

Billionaire philanthropist Eli Broad on Wednesday fired a shot back at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art's proposal to merge with L.A.'s financially threatened Museum of Contemporary Art. "The answer is like in the movie: 'Show us the money,' " said Broad, who has his own bailout proposal for MOCA on the table, from San Francisco, where he'd just announced a $25-million Broad Foundation grant for stem cell research.

Peeking to advance stem cell research in California, philanthropists Eli and Edythe Broad announced Wednesday that they will donate $25 million to UC San Francisco for a state-of-the-art laboratory that will bring together some of the world's leading scientists in the field. The gift was hailed by Gov.

After Tuesday's confirmation that the financially troubled Museum of Contemporary Art would accept a $30-million bailout offer from billionaire philanthropist Eli Broad, a number of artists, museum executives and civic leaders hailed the decision as an important first step in ensuring the museum's future -- but only a first step. "I don't think we know what it means yet," Los Angeles County Supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky said of the new agreement.

The Chandler family, which owned the Los Angeles Times for more than a century, and a partnership of local billionaires Eli Broad and Ron Burkle made competing offers Wednesday for Chicago-based media giant Tribune Co. After a four-month auction process, the bids pit two powerful Southern California interests in a battle for the company that owns The Times, KTLA-TV Channel 5 and the Chicago Cubs baseball team.

An offer for Tribune Co. by two Los Angeles billionaires would not require significant cuts at the company's newspapers, contrary to initial criticism of the debt-heavy proposal, people close to the transaction said Thursday. The bid by Eli Broad and Ron Burkle was one of two competing bids that emerged Wednesday for the Chicago-based company, just hours before a bidding deadline.