Founder Duty Fri Biography

The future billionaire spent all his childhood in a small Irish community in New Jersey. While he diligently went to the Catholic school of St. Maria of the Assumption Elizabeth, his parents worked without lingering their hands to provide their children with a bright future. A mother, reverently loving her only son, worked as a nurse in the red cross. It seems that the desire to give and show compassion for those who were much less fortunate and there were countless them throughout America in those years, was inherited by Chuck itself.

The long shifts that he took as a radio operator would be much more joyless, if not for the only thought: someday it will end, and he will be able to return home and get a free education. Then it, fortunately for Chuck, was supposed to all served in a special benefit for veterans. And being again in America, Fini did not miss such an opportunity. The first of the family dared to take his studies beyond the scope of the school curriculum, he decided not to be modest and filed a statement at once at the University of Cornell in Itak, New York.

So Chuck Fini, who grew up in the industrial town of Elizabeth, ended up in one of the educational institutions of the Poyshch League. Over the years of student, Cornell University managed to give him not only a diploma of a hotel specialist, but also something much more expensive-friends and calling. It was there that Chuck firmly promised himself that he would never work for someone, but would go his own business, despite all the difficulties.

After release from the university, before Finni lay a sea of ​​possibilities, which he literally perceived. In the year only in the Mediterranean there were 50 ships of the sixth Fleet of the United States, and several dozen military people served on board each of them, who had the right to buy alcohol duty -free. Chuck, who had a special entrepreneurial instinct, could not help but notice in this way to earn extra money.

Together with the Englishman, who, by a happy chance, met in one of the bars, he founded his first business to supply alcohol to military vessels. Partners quickly understood the profitability of this case and began to sell goods not only to sailors, but also to ordinary tourists. And soon perfumery was added to alcohol that is logical and cars that are less logical, but much more profitable.

The inexperience of Finnish and his partners, their number in the end increased to three led to the fact that debts began to accumulate one after another, and the business had to be suspended. However, Chuck and despondency all his life went in different roads, and therefore he was not going to despair and give up after his first failure. Its next - and ultimately brought world fame - the idea was not new: the first point of Duty Free opened at the Irish airport Shannon just a year after the end of the Second World War.

But that in E, that in the years of traveling through the air remained the privilege of the rich, which means that no one suggested that duty -free trade was able to bring solid income. However, Chuck, as we could already guess, perfectly read between the lines. Further, a case played a role. The impetus for the development of the business was the sudden opening of the borders of Japan up to a year, citizens of the country were forbidden to travel abroad.

In the Duty Free Shoppers, as the Finnish team called their store, traded cigarettes, alcohol and souvenirs, who were happy to buy Japanese tourists who were pushing to freedom. Since prices for the same goods in the country of the rising sun were often several times higher, everyone remained in the winnings. By the end of the 10ths, Duty Free Shoppers turned into the most successful network of duty -free shops, the number of its employees exceeded 6 thousand people, and the profit was approaching $ 3 billion a year.

In fact, it was already much more modest at that time, although only the close ones of Chuck knew about this: a few years before, he transferred most of his savings to the charity fund called Atlantic Philanthropies. The businessman organized an organization engaged in the collection of money for a variety of needs, including healthcare and protection of human rights. Before her closure in September, she issued near grants, the largest of which - only Million dollars received millions of dollars for education.

By this time, the number of his anonymous donations at Atlantic Philanthropies exceeded millions of dollars. And Harvey P. Dale, a professor of tax law of New York University and the President of Atlantic Philanthropies, and completely admitted that Finni had neither a house nor a car, and the clock that he wore cost only $ 15. In total, Charles Francis Finni gave 8 billion dollars to Charles Francis.

By his example, he inspired American entrepreneurs Bill Gates and Warren Buffett to create an “oath of gift” - the initiative, according to which the richest people of the planet undertake to donate most of their condition.