Early venture bets on SpaceX have ballooned into major portfolio positions at some US university endowments, with new analysis estimating the aerospace firm contributed as much as 10.6 percentage points to annual returns. Michael Markov, founder of US quantitative researcher Markov Processes International, says the windfall is now creating a concentration risk that investors cannot ignore.
Asia's growing investors, including university endowments and family offices, are hunting for returns in lower-middle market and asset-backed private credit. In an interview with Top1000funds.com, head of Asian clients at the $92 billion OCIO Cambridge Associates, Prabhat Ojha, talks manager selection and Asian allocators' rising appetite for alternatives.
The Harvard endowment is about half way through its transition to external investment management and will work with its service providers to implement the university’s new directive, to position the portfolio in line with net-zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050.
In 2005, the $3 billion WARF embraced a risk parity strategy with a portable alpha overlay. Despite many doubters, the plan has been a success - and the fund still has that experimental ethos.
The University of Toronto Asset Management Corporation adopts passive moves into US equities, active allocations to international shares and select opportunities in private credit markets.
The decision by the Stanford University endowment to divest from coal stocks might produce some positive PR, but from an investment perspective it’s only making them worse off, says Andrew Ang, professor of finance at Columbia University, who says the move prompts the bigger question of what the purpose of a university endowment actually is.
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