A $237 million financial donation to Florida A&M University was lauded as “transformational” by school officials when it was announced last weekend. But since then, the deal has been under major scrutiny, as more information about the donor comes out. Now the university says it’s placed the processing of that donation on hold as it seeks to get more details about how it’s funded, and whether the school can actually do anything with it.
FAMU's Shawnta Friday Stroud says the school took a risk with accepting the stock, but felt it was a good deal given the ongoing changes around hemp and marijuana policy that are expected to grow the industry.
“That’s what kinda led to saying, okay, this has potential. And again, It wasn’t until we had the stock transferred into our carta account that we started saying, okay this becomes real. Because before that, we’re really just talking about air," she said during an emergency meeting of The FAMU Foundation Board Thursday night.
The money, from Texas hemp investor Gregory Gerami, comes in the form of shares in his privately held company. And the school doesn’t know how much those shares are worth on the open market. Nor can they convert them to cash, because the company is not publicly traded, and no independent evaluation of how much the shares are worth has been done. The stocks could be valued anywhere from nothing to $300 million, but even those figures are just guesses.
"I just want to let you know that already, with regards to the gift and processing and future processing, we’ve already decided that it’s in our best interest to put that on hold," said FAMU President Larry Robinson.
Robinson says "more information has come to my attention," within the last several days, but declined to say what that information is.
Gerami — the donor — has made conflicting statements regarding the source of his wealth and family history. He’s also attempted to make other, extremely large donations to schools that did not go through or were called off. FAMU says it saw statements of Gerami’s financial accounts and met at least once with his financial advisors. It also says it was aware of Gerami’s history and much of what’s been reported about him, but decided to move forward anyway.
The ongoing saga around the gift, hailed as the largest in the history of Historically Black Colleges and Universities, and one of the largest given to any college or university ever — has made FAMU a source of ridicule. Foundation board members are concerned about the schools' reputation, and are encouraging it to hire a crisis management and communications team amid the fallout.
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