Harvard Endowment Further Cutting Stock Holdings

Per a recent SEC filing, and as reported in a WSJ article, the Harvard University Endowment appears to have cuts its holdings of public stock by about two-thirds. This is two-thirds of a position that has already been lowered over the years as a result of an increased exposure to alternative investments. About 70 stocks and publicly traded funds were recently valued at less than $600 million within a fund that was valued in total at nearly $37 billion last June - before losing a reported 30 percent of its value. While it appears that Harvard may have sold some of these assets near the bottom, they may have had little choice given that a significant portion of their portfolio is either managed by external managers and/or is illiquid, such as timber, real estate, and private equity investments (which in some cases could have additional funding obligations) - see a previous post that discusses potential liquidity risk issues at Harvard.