The strategy was a winner this year. Stanley Druckenmiller, the billionaire hedge fund manager who has served on Bowdoin’s investment committee for years, said in an interview last month that the $1.4 billion endowment of the Brunswick, Maine, school stood out because it had stakes in the “right private equity managers and I mean the right ones that bore fruit.”


‘Outlier Returns’


He also said the hedge fund portfolio “was outstanding” primarily because some macro managers had “outsize, outlier returns taking advantage of the decline in oil and currencies.” He declined to name the funds. Volent has led Bowdoin’s investment office since 2000 after receiving an MBA from Yale and working for Swensen for four years.

Private equity -- particularly venture capital funds -- have outperformed. For the year through March 31, venture capital returned 20.2 percent, according to an index compiled by Cambridge Associates. U.S. real estate gained 13.9 percent through June 30, according to an index by the National Council of Real Estate Investment Fiduciaries. The Standard & Poor’s 500 Index gained 4.5 percent for the year through June 30.

Yale said in a statement that its highest returning asset class over the past decade was venture capital at an average annual gain of 18 percent. It hasn’t disclosed annual performance of the different sectors yet. It also said it was increasing allocation targets for absolute return this year along with bonds and cash while lowering what it expects to invest in real estate and private equity.

The size of the university’s endowment reached $25.6 billion as of June 30, making it the second-largest behind Harvard.

The Princeton endowment had success this year in biotechnology, health care, venture capital and emerging markets, according to a school spokesman. Golden, the investment chief since 1995, didn’t respond to a request to elaborate on the returns. The fund grew to $22.7 billion this year, surpassing Stanford to become the fourth-largest college endowment in the U.S.


Foreign Equities


MIT similarly disclosed little beyond its bottom line performance. Alexander, who has overseen the $13.5 billion fund since 2006, didn’t respond to e-mails requesting comment. The university’s annual financial report released last month shows steep increases in investments in foreign equities.

Swensen and his acolytes are especially good at picking investing talent, said Tim Keating, president of Keating Wealth Management, an investment adviser based in Greenwood Village, Colorado.