(Bloomberg News) The Nobel Foundation, which this year lopped 20 percent off its cash prizes, is planning to invest more money through hedge funds to boost its returns and restore the award to its previous size.

“When we look at the analysis we see that we can get more return with less risks by doing that,” said Executive Director Lars Heikensten. “If we can choose hedge funds that we trust, then we can get better returns for given risks.” The fund “probably shouldn’t” be fully invested in debt securities, he said.

The Nobel foundation, created in 1900 at the request of Swedish industrialist Alfred Nobel to award prizes in physics, chemistry, medicine, peace and literature, this year cut the cash amount of its prize for the first time since 1949. The move followed a decade of poor returns, exacerbated by the onset of the global financial crisis.

“It was a difficult decision to take, since Nobel when he wrote his will made clear he wanted his money to be used for prizes,” said Heikensten, a former governor of the Swedish central bank.

An economics prize was created by Sweden’s Riksbank in 1968. Alvin E. Roth and Lloyd S. Shapley shared the award this year for their work on matching supply and demand. Previous laureates include Milton Friedman and Paul Krugman. The 2012 peace prize went to the European Union.

‘Difficult Times’
The Nobel foundation, which had 2.97 billion kronor ($448 million) in investments at the end of 2011, cut this year’s prize amount to 8 million kronor from 10 million kronor to safeguard its capital.

“We live in difficult times and had not been as successful as one would have wanted in the last 10 years,” Heikensten said. The foundation “had in fact been spending more every year on average than” it had been earning, “and we had to do something,” he said.

The fund has returned 1.5 percent to 2 percent, on average, over the past 10 years, below the 3.5 percent to 4 percent needed to keep its capital stable, according to Heikensten.

Average hedge fund returns don’t suggest the Nobel Foundation will be much better off. The HFRX Global Hedge Fund Index, a measure of hedge fund performance, has gained 2.4 percent in the first 11 months of this year. The MSCI world index of global stocks returned 11 percent in the same period, though it fell 26 percent between the end of 2007 and the end of 2011.

Alternative Investments
In 2011, 47 percent of the Nobel foundation’s invested capital was in equities, down from 67 percent in 2007, according to its website. Over the same period, stakes in alternative investments such as private equity, properties and hedge-funds rose to 33 percent from 12 percent. Fixed-income investments were at 20 percent, versus 21 percent in 2007.

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