endowments

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UC Prevails in Public Disclosure Case

Byuclafaculty

UC invests in pension and other funds in a broad array of assets including investments in private equity firms.  Such firms are exempt from most forms of public disclosure since investments with them are not publicly available.  However, there have been attempts to get at their records through UC by demanding the reports that UC receives from the firms as an investor.  The firms reportedly will refuse to allow future UC investments if their records are subject to disclosure. Finance types generally view having a broad array of assets in a portfolio as a Good Thing and therefore exclusion by…

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UCLA Is Well Endowed But Seems to Have Problems of Performance

Byuclafaculty

The Regents’ Investment Committee is meeting on September 25 and one of the items on the agenda is a look at what the various campus foundations are doing with their endowment investments.  Above is a chart showing the asset mix of the different campuses as of March.  [Click on the chart to enlarge and make clearer.]  UCLA seems to be lower than the typical for the campuses in what might be viewed as conventional investments, i.e., equities and fixed income (and cash).  It seems higher in such categories such as real estate, private equity, commodities, and absolute return (which a…

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Listen to Audio of Special Regents Meeting of June 19, 2012

Byuclafaculty

Although we have posted audio from the July Regents meeting, there was a special meeting earlier called for June 19.  Below is the agenda and audio for that meeting. Tuesday, June 19: Special Meeting of Regents 12:30 pm Committee on Compensation (Regents Only Session) 12:45 pm Committee on Compensation (Open Session – includes public comment session) 1:05 pm Board (open session) The three sessions above were to approve appointment of Amy Dorr – Dean of UCLA’s GSEIS – as UC Provost and EVC-Academic Affairs, $350,000 plus moving and related expenses. 1:30 pm Committee on Investments: Review of investment returns and…

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Competition with the Private Universities & Endowments

Byuclafaculty

A recent working paper from the National Bureau of Economic Research suggests that private universities react asymmetrically to shocks to their endowments. In particular, they overreact to negative shocks by cutting their operating budgets. That may suggest that, in the aftermath of their recent big financial losses, the privates were not as aggressive in raiding UC as they could have been but also that this effect is likely to wear off. That is, the endowment-loss effect may have shielded UC for a time, but we cannot count on it continuing. Below is a summary of the paper: Why I Lost…