Bloomberg reported yesterday that the University of Texas took delivery of nearly $1 billion in gold bullion and is storing it in a New York City vault. This is a startling development-- $1 billion is approximately 5% of the University's total endowment. The floodgates are now open for other endowments, pension funds, etc to follow suit.
Texas has the country's second largest endowment; Harvard University has the largest with more than $27 billion in it's coffers. I've often wondered why schools with this much money even bother charging tuition. Here's how Harvard's asset allocation model percentages have changed according to their latest annual report:
1995 2005 2010
Domestic Equities 38 15 11
Foreign Equities 15 10 11
Emerging Markets 5 5 11
Private Equities 12 13 13
Total Equity 70 43 46
Absolute Return 0 12 16
Commodities 6 13 14
Real Estate 7 10 9
Total Real Assets 13 23 23
Domestic Bonds 15 11 4
Foreign Bonds 5 5 2
High Yield 2 5 2
Inflation‐Indexed Bonds 0 6 5
Total Fixed Income 22 27 13
Cash -5 -5 2
Since 1995, holdings in equities and bonds, and have been reduced while holdings in absolute return, commodities, real estate, and cash have increased. Absolute return investment techniques include short selling, futures, options, derivatives, arbitrage, leverage and unconventional assets. For the most part, think hedge fund. What's interesting is how different this model is compared with the 3rd grade nonsense you read in the popular business magazines. Does the average 401K investor know the brainiacs at Harvard have more money in commodities that US equities?
Just for fun I tried to find some information about the endowment at my alma mater, SUNY Cortland. It's not in the billions, just a paltry $11.7 million to be precise. This money is invested with a single manager. OK, I know I was a chemistry major and partied too much, but hello finance committee-- hire more than one manager.
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