College’s multi-million-pound gift from Vietnam sparks inquiry
AN OXFORD college is under investigation over a £155million gift from the Vietnamese billionaire who founded a so-called “bikini airline”, amid concern over her links to her country’s communist government.
Linacre College announced last year that in exchange for the “landmark gift” from Nguyen Thi Phuong Thao’s Sovico Group, it will change its name to Thao College.
But the donation is now subject to an “active investigation” by the Government, the universities minister Michelle Donelan said in the Commons.
She was responding to concerns raised during a debate about the Higher Education (Freedom of Speech) Bill by Julian Lewis, MP for New Forest East.
Mr Lewis asked Ms Donelan whether she shares his concern “at the proposed £155 million gift … to Linacre College Oxford ... on condition that the name of the college is changed to that of the chairwoman of this company that is extremely close to the Vietnamese communist government”.
He pointed out that the Privy Council has to approve the name change and asked if the Government is taking a view on this. Ms Donelan said she had only recently been “alerted” to the donation, adding: “I am actively investigating this, and can update the honourable member within the coming days.”
Linacre College was founded in 1962 and is named after 15th-century humanist and physician Thomas Linacre.
Ms Thao was born in 1970 in Hanoi, north Vietnam.
At 21, she began to build her fortune while studying in Russia, importing fax machines, plastic and rubber into the then Soviet Union.
In 2007, she launched Vietjet Air as the first privately run low-cost airline in Vietnam. It became known as the “bikini airline” after an ad campaign featuring bikini-clad flight attendants.
A decade later, she took the company public and in doing so became South East Asia’s only female billionaire. She is chairman of Sovico Holdings, parent company of Vietjet Air.
The Education Secretary proposed new laws this week which will see universities sanctioned if they allow foreign entities to influence what is said on campus.
Institutions will have to report financial links to individuals or organisations from overseas, or be fined.
Nadhim Zahawi said he did not want universities to feel “under pressure” to compromise on academic freedom because of funding from authoritarian countries such as China.
A Linacre College spokesman said: “Major donations are approved by the college’s governing body in addition to the university’s committee to review donations and research funding, both of which follow a robust, independent process, taking legal, ethical and reputational issues into consideration.”