Harvard Management, which hired N.P. ‘Narv’ Narvekar as chief executive officer just over a year ago, has reduced its staff, sold assets and is hiring outside money managers in order to reverse a decade of poor performance.
The alumni group said removing the entire endowment from hedge funds “would be a very radical change” and suggested removing just half, “at least for the time being.”
Harvard and other universities already use passive strategies as part of their portfolio management, though the bulk of their endowments tend to invest with active managers, including hedge funds, which are known for higher fees. Last year, Harvard said in a filing that it held more than $1 billion of low-cost exchange-traded funds.
“We propose a radical new endowment strategy to enable the university to avoid such cuts, while putting the whole management of the endowment on a new basis that would better reflect the values of a great university,” the alumni wrote.
This article was provided by Bloomberg News.