Posted on 09/10/2009 4:22:03 PM PDT by SeekAndFind
Harvard’s endowment tumbled 27.3 percent in its latest fiscal year, largely because of problems with its private equity and hedge fund portfolios, lopping off $10 billion and shrinking its portfolio to $26 billion.
The loss is the biggest percentage decline at Harvard in 40 years and has prompted a review of how it manages its money and allocates assets. Jane Mendillo, who took over the endowment on July 1, 2008, intends to manage more of the school’s assets directly instead of using outside money managers and to hire additional people to oversee the management by outsiders.
In her letter describing the dismal results for the year ended June 30, Ms. Mendillo said she was adding a chief operating officer as part of this initiative.
Harvard had signaled earlier this year that the fund might be down as much as 30 percent, and it seems to have benefited only slightly from the upswing in the stock markets this year.
Although other endowments at major universities suffered declines, many did better than Harvard, which has been known over the years for its investing prowess. The University of Pennsylvania, for example, was down 15.7 percent. A survey of foundations and endowments with assets of more than $1 billion by Wilshire Trust Universe Comparison Service found an average decline of 17.06 percent in fiscal 2009. A year earlier, Harvard’s endowment gained 8 percent, raising its total to $36.9 billion.
While Harvard aims to outperform, it also establishes a policy portfolio with a benchmark index for each asset class. Weighting its assets in each category and using those benchmarks, Harvard underperformed its policy portfolio by 2.1 percent.
Of six investment classes, four failed to meet their benchmarks. In a couple of cases the shortfall was sharp.
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
Shit....now they only have 26 Billion in which to turn out asswipe liberal politicians....what a dire tragedy for this country.
When the best and the brightest can’t beat the market, how can I be expected to do so?
And I’ll bet they’d STILL be able to make a profit without charging one red cent in tuition.
(Not that they would ever offer free tuition. No, that would negate their reputation of exclusivity that comes with charging those big bucks.)
Cry me a river.
Too bad they didn’t end up under water.
They will get more from the Saudis.
Actually, a very subtle entendre......nice.....
Only $37 Billion. Sniff. Where’s my hankie?
Perhaps if they released to the public the transcripts of student Barry Soetero (BO), they could make up the deficit in enrollments from people who would view it as having done the right thing....? Were there “privacy” laws in effect at the time he attended (doubtful)! In any event, BO has invested almost a million to guarantee they will NEVER be seen.
And I was hoping that Harvard had at least a billion with Bernie Madoff and a half billion with Standford! Pity.
Because the best and the brightest get newly defined by performance each and every day.
Looks like today you are close to number 1 while Harvard is number.....my finger got tired adding zeros.
This must be wrong.
How could the smartest people in the world, (just ask them who are the smartest) lose this much money.
Next they will be wanting government stimulus funds.
Aw gee that's a f*ing shame. Maybe they'll have to stop hiring illiterate unethical incompetent racist dirtbags like "Skip" Gates.
Naw. That would be too easy. Better to milk the fat cats one more time.
Yeah-- that's the ticket--squeeze out one more memorial bequest from the Kennedy schmucks. They are always good for a plaque somewhere on campus.
26 Billion left?
The hypocrites at Harvard should practice what they preach and redistribute all that wealth to the “peur”.
And how does Mzzz Mandildo respond to this crisis but to increase staff so the ratio of expenses to ASsets rises to 97% of funds. Did she come from Calpers?
These Ivy League banjo hitters are the assholes who got us all into this quagmire. What makes you think they would be the "best and the brightest" at anything else, including managing other peoples' money?
She probably taught the CalPers people!
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