$125 Million Is Pledged to Big Medical Center

Mr. Feeney, who earned his fortune with a chain of duty-free shops, is known for his extraordinarily modest lifestyle and his many years of anonymously giving away hundreds of millions of dollars before he went public as a philanthropist in 1997.

The new donation is the largest ever by his foundation, the Atlantic Philanthropies, though in an interview Thursday at Atlantic’s offices in New York, he questioned whether it was appropriate to call the money a gift, since it is contingent on the university’s ability to raise a matching amount from other donors.