Harvard University’s endowment ranks second-to-last among Ivy League schools in annualized returns over the last 20 years — hurt partially by the fund shelling out nearly $800 million to investment managers during that span, according to a report.
The school’s Harvard Management Co. (HMC) has had annualized returns of 8.8% over the past two decades, according to the National Association of College and University Business Officers — trailing 60% of university funds with more than $5 billion under management, Bloomberg News reported.
Among its Ivy League brethren, only Cornell reported a lower 20-year annualized return than Harvard at just over 8%, the data showed.
While Harvard remains the wealthiest university in the world — with an endowment of $50.7 billion — its fund has been underperforming compared to its peers partly due to the revolving door of investment managers since the departure of longtime treasurer D. Ronald Daniel.
Under Daniel’s watch from 1989 to 2004, HMC gained a reputation as one of the world’s leading investment firms. He helped grow Harvard’s endowment four-fold — quadrupling it in value from $4.7 billion to $22.6 billion.
Since Daniel’s departure, however, HMC has gone through seven top executives, among them three interim appointments and two who served few than two years. It has paid out $800 million over the past 20 years to procure top flight investment talent, according to Bloomberg.
Daniel died last December at his home in Manhattan. He was 93.
Another reason for HMC’s poor performance after Daniel left was because of misguided decisions by his numerous successors, including ill-advised investments in assets whose value dropped, as well as taking on risk just before market downturns, Boston University finance expert Mark Williams said.
“You just feel they’re playing catch-up ball,” Williams told Bloomberg News.
An HMC official said it had a “singular focus” on generating risk-adjusted returns to fund the school’s operation.
“In recent years, HMC undertook dramatic changes to its investment model, organizational structure and portfolio,” endowment spokesperson Patrick McKiernan told Bloomberg News.
“Long-term investments naturally take time to be fully realized, but early indications show that the endowment is well-positioned to meet both the current and future needs of Harvard University.”
Yale, meanwhile, topped the list of Ivies that have generated a better rate of return than Harvard over the last two decades. The New Haven, Conn., university’s 20-year annualized rate came in at just under 10.9%.
Princeton University’s endowment generated the second-highest returns over the last 20 years at 10.5%.
Dartmouth, Brown, Columbia and the University of Pennsylvania also came in ahead of Harvard.
Harvard’s status as the richest school in the country faces a threat from from the University of Texas, one of the largest public university systems in the country.
By the end of fiscal year 2023, UT’s endowment had around $45 billion in assets under management.
The Austin-based school owns more than 2 million acres of land in Western Texas, enabling it to collect on royalties from oil and natural gas reserves.
With energy production having gone up significantly in the region over the past few years, the university has been able to net a windfall of hundreds of millions of dollars annually.
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