Glenn pledges $3.85m for sports centre

Owen Glenn. Photo / Ben Fraser

Expatriate businessman Owen Glenn has pledged to donate nearly $4 million towards a national sports academy at the Millennium Institute of Sport & Health on Auckland's North Shore.

Glenn, who made his fortune building a global freight business - OTS Logistics - is now based in Monaco. He spends much of his time travelling the world running the business which is headquartered in the US and has annual turnover of more than $1 billion.

He is in town this week to talk to business groups and to work with his local charitable interests. Glenn then heads to Delhi to support the New Zealand Commonwealth Games team. Though a proud Kiwi since the age of 8, Glenn was born in India and says he has no concerns about travelling to the sub-continent. He regularly visits the northeast of the country on behalf of his charitable foundation.

In 2005 Glenn made a $7.5 million donation towards the construction of the Auckland University Business School - now called the Owen G. Glenn building.

This latest philanthropic effort - a pledge of $3.85 million - will see the Millennium's pool facilities dubbed the Owen G. Glenn Aquatic Centre.

After an initial donation of $100,000 which funded research into the viability of the proposed National Training Centre for High Performance Sport, Glenn donated a further $1 million earlier this year.

"Then they came to see me in Paris, a couple of the boys, Graeme Avery and Chris Klaasen," Glenn says.

"And they said; look to finish the first stage we need another $5.5 million. So I said you raise half that and I'll give you the other half."

The expansion plans for the institute have a total budget of about $40 million.

Glenn said he hoped the latest donation would lead the way for other private sector donations.