May 11, 2001
AIM Employees Give $5.5 Million to McCombs School to Support Finance Education
Eighth Year in a Row for Graduate Program
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AUSTIN, Texas — Houston businessmen Gary Crum and Bob Graham and 63 employees in their AIM Management Group have given $5.5 million for endowments supporting finance education programs in the McCombs School of Business at The University of Texas at Austin.
Of the gift, $4 million is for an endowment for a new academic center for the study of investment. The new AIM Investment Center will support research in investment management, capital markets and other areas of finance.
“Financial management is an important area for business students and for society at large,” said UT Austin President Larry R. Faulkner. “This gift will help us strengthen our outstanding finance program in the McCombs School of Business. I applaud Gary Crum, Bob Graham and the AIM Management Group for their generosity and vision.”
UT Austin finance students will manage the $4 million endowment through a private investment company managed by McCombs graduate students. The company, known as the MBA Investment Fund, L.L.C, has approximately $13 million under management.
“Since the start of the MBA Investment Fund in 1994, Gary, Bob and the AIM Company have been important strategic partners in the development of our investment management education and research program,” said Dr. George Gau, chair of the department of finance at UT Austin. “We are proud to have them involved with our program and very grateful for their financial support.”
The AIM Management group has been a supporter of the fund since its inception seven years ago.
Crum is a member of the fund’s board of directors and a frequent hirer of MBA Investment Fund students. Both Crum and Graham are alumni of the UT Graduate School of Business and both serve on the McCombs School Advisory Council.
“To hire someone who has had access to the way Wall Street works is really advantageous for us,” said Crum., “It knocks a year off the learning curve and that’s very important.”
Crum, Graham and the 63 employees also created a $1 million endowment to support the school’s Trading Room. MBA students managing the investment fund use the facility — a replica of a Wall Street trading room. The $1 million endowment will provide for equipment upgrades and renovations to the room, which will be renamed the AIM Trading Room.
“Our feeling is that this is a high quality project, and we would like our name to be affiliated with it,” said Crum.
In addition, Graham, Crum and the 63 employees created a $500,000 endowment for renovations and future enhancements to the reading room in the McCombs School of Business. It will be renamed the AIM Reading Room.
The McCombs School of Business is perennially ranked one of the top business schools in the country and world according to leading business publications such as The Wall Street Journal, BusinessWeek, and U.S. News & World Report. With strength across the board in all major business disciplines, McCombs is especially known for innovative collaborations with industry and for leading programs in technology, entrepreneurship, finance, and accounting. McCombs offers a full range of business education programs, from BBA and full-time MBA to Part-time MBA, Executive MBA, Executive Education, PhD, and graduate accounting (PPA/MPA). Under new dean George W. Gau, the school has set a goal of becoming the top public business school in the nation.
For additional information about the gift, contact George Gau at the McCombs School of Business, (512) 471-6612; Ivy McLemore at AIM Management Group, (713) 214-1904 or Sheila Allee at UT Resource Development, (512) 475-9672.
For information on specific programs at the McCombs School, consult our contacts page. For media information, contact the Communications Director by phone at 512-471-3314 or by email at CommunicationsDirector@mccombs.utexas.edu.
