(February 8, 2013) — Princeton, Northwestern, and the University of California slipped down the list of top 20 of North American endowment funds – ranked in asset size – in the fiscal year 2012, research has shown.
These three eminent academies fell at least one place in a ranking published by the National Association of College and University Business Officers (NACUBO) and the Commonfund Institute, in the 12 months to the end of June last year.
All three saw their assets shrink in that time, but the publishers of the survey pointed out that the change in asset size reflected not just portfolio returns, but took into account withdrawals that had been made to students, investment costs, and donations made to the fund over that year.
Harvard University remained top of the list with $30.4 billion in assets, but this number was 4.1% lower than at the same point in 2011. In second position, Yale University’s assets were just 0.1% lower than a year earlier and stood at $19.3 billion.
Retaining third position was the University of Texas System, which saw a 6.5% increase to $18.2 billion. Overtaking Princeton to move into the fourth spot was Stanford University with an increase in assets of 3.2% taking its portfolio value to just over $17 billion.
The largest increase in the top 20 came at the Texas A&M University System and Foundations, the report said. This asset pool rose 9.1% to overtake Northwestern and move into ninth place with $7.6 billion. The largest drop in assets came at the University of California, which had a 6% slump in assets over the year, ending it with $5.9 billion.
Outside of the top 20 funds, Brown University was one of the furthest-falling institutions. The Rhode Island academy fell from 25th to 28th position as its asset pools fell 7.3% in the 12-month period. Conversely, the University of Illinois and its Foundation rose from 46th to 39th position with an asset pool increase of 4.2%, while those above it saw portfolio values drop.
The mean change in asset values across the whole cohort of 843 institutions was a drop of 0.7%, the report said.
Earlier this month, the NACUBO-Commonfund Study of Endowments showed that these institutions’ endowments returned an average of -0.3% after fees had been paid in the 12 months to the end of June 2012. This was a steep decline from the same period a year earlier when the average return reached 19.2%. “Over the longer term, ten-year returns for FY2012 were 6.2% compared with 5.6% in FY2011,” the study said, suggesting that long-term performance for many institutions has continued to improve.
The full list can be found here.