Princeton investments gain 15%, beat Harvard, Yale

No Ivy League school has recouped the losses of the year ended June 30, 2009.

Princeton University’s investments gained 15 per cent in the year ended June, beating Yale University and Harvard, which gained 8.9 per cent and 11 per cent, respectively.

The fund was valued at $14.4 billion as of June 30, up from $12.6 billion a year earlier, the Princeton, New Jersey, school said today on its website.

Princeton had an average annual return of 7.9 per cent in the decade through June, beating Harvard’s seven per cent gain and trailing Yale’s 8.9 per cent gain. Andrew Golden, Princeton’s chief investment officer, is an acolyte of Yale’s fund chief David Swensen, who pioneered a strategy that invests in assets like private equity, real estate and commodities to beat traditional stock and bond portfolios.

Institutional funds, including public and corporate pensions, endowments and foundations, returned a median of 13 per cent in the past year, according to Wilshire Associates, a consulting firm in Santa Monica, California. The firm’s Trust Universe Comparison Service tracks 1,300 funds and $3 trillion in assets. The Standard & Poor’s 500 Index gained 12 per cent in the year ended June.
 

ENDOWMENT RESULTS  FOR SELECT SCHOOLS
School	Endowment  ($ bn)	Return  (%)
Yale	16.7	8.9
MIT	8.3	10
Dartmouth	3.0	10
Brown	2.2	10
Harvard	27.4	11
Cornell	4.4	13
Penn	5.7	13
Stanford*	13.8	14**
Princeton	14.4	15
Columbia	6.5	17
* Financial year ended Aug 31; all others ended June 30 ** Investment results for 12 months ended June 30

Yale, the New Haven, Connecticut, university with $16.7 billion, reported the worst performance among Ivy League schools. Harvard, in Cambridge, Massachusetts, the richest US school, said on September 9 that investments at its $27.4 billion fund rose 11 per cent in the past year.

The Ivy League consists of eight private schools in the northeastern US Columbia University’s $6.5-billion endowment jumped 17 per cent in the past year, while the University of Pennsylvania’s $5.7-billion fund gained 13 per cent. Dartmouth College reported a 10 per cent return for its $3-billion fund. Cornell University said its $4.4 billion in investments rose 13 per cent. Brown University’s $2.18-billion fund gained 10 per cent.

None of the Ivy League schools has recouped the record losses incurred in the year ended June 30, 2009, after the bankruptcy of Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc crippled financial markets in September 2008. As investments tumbled, universities cut jobs, froze salaries and postponed building projects. Princeton lost 24 per cent in the year ended June 2009, mirroring declines at Harvard and Yale.