JURA Corporation

The sale of LORD Corporation, a century-old, privately-held manufacturing company, has led to the distribution of more than $1 billion to four charitable foundations that support institutions seeking to advance education and research. Cleveland Clinic, Duke University, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and the University of Southern California (USC) will benefit from the distribution of $261 million to each of the four foundations that were the recipients of gifts of stock from Thomas Lord, who led the family-owned company until his death in 1989. Lord’s estate plan created a holding company, Jura Corporation, which owned all of the voting stock and most of the non-voting stock of the LORD Corporation, as well as four foundations which, in turn, owned a significant part of Jura: the Lord Foundation of California, which supports USC; the Lord Foundation of Massachusetts, which supports MIT; the Lord Foundation of North Carolina, which supports Duke; and the Lord Foundation of Ohio, which supports Cleveland Clinic. LORD Corporation, which was founded in Erie, Pa., and is now based in Cary, N.C., grew to sales of more than $1 billion in 2018. It was recently purchased by Parker Hannifin Corporation for $3.675 billion, triggering the distribution of the proceeds to the four foundations. Since their establishment in the early 1980s, the Lord foundations have already provided a total of approximately $200 million to the four institutions for education and research.