The Wall Street Journal is reporting that "Six top Harvard endowment managers were paid a total of $26.8 million for the fiscal year ended June 30." It should be pointed out that the endowment fund earned returns just south of 9% through June 30th next to double digit negatives for the S&P 500. Not bad. But it didn't last, of course. The last 90 days have been brutal to most endowments, Harvard's has been no exception shedding $8 billion (or around 22%) through early December. Somehow I doubt that any clawbacks are in the making for "Six top Harvard endowment managers" at year-end, whatever the endowment's final figures end up being.
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Posted by TheSnarkmasterGeneral , Dec 19, 2008 2:57PM
Actually there is a pretty substantial clawback, at least there was when Jack Meyer ran Harvard's endowment, and I'd be surprised if this has changed.
Posted by Global Rebellion , Dec 19, 2008 3:03PM
Harvard's investment officers should do something worthwhile with their lives and go work at a public pension plan. State workers could use those kinds of returns.
Posted by VOL IS KING , Dec 19, 2008 3:08PM
This has got to be the greatest job on the street, after Rubin at Citi.
$26.8 million to buy fucking ETFs and shovel money into your alumni's dog shit hedge funds? How much do these clowns have in Citadel? Please tell me the whole thing?
See this is what happens when you let women run a University and manage the money. They were supposed to hire some one to run the endowment up there, not make a delicious Sunday dinner. Maybe the trustees can just outsource the endowment management company to Swensen?
P.S.
Rick Wagoner, Hank Paulson and George W. Bush.
Harvard Business School has got to get nervous having its whole alumni brain trust all in the same place at the same time. What if a nuke goes off? Who could save the endowment, without the HBS A-Team?
*just kidding with the misogyny.
Posted by guest , Dec 19, 2008 3:15PM
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/19/opinion/19krugman.html?em
Posted by guest , Dec 19, 2008 3:15PM
anyone know how meyer's fund has held up recently?
Posted by guest , Dec 19, 2008 3:20PM
No wonder all these Harvard and HBS alums are losing their shirt. Seems like proper due diligence is kryptonite up there in Cambridge
Posted by guest , Dec 19, 2008 3:26PM
Fuck them. They're part of the problem. Turning out 'masters of the universe' who are just really fuck heads out to line their pockets at the expense of the rest of us.
re-post.
Posted by guest , Dec 19, 2008 3:35PM
At least it isn't taxpayer money. Some part of every Harvard grad's loan went to them. Now that's comforting.
Posted by guest , Dec 19, 2008 3:44PM
My apologies to all Yale and Harvard students that actually bring good to the world. I did not mean to lump you in with the bottom feeding scum that infest our government and financial institutions.
Posted by guest , Dec 20, 2008 7:25AM
@9
When I interviewed with hmc, 2 years ago, I told "them" about the sub-prime contagion. "They" said Larry Summers thinks gold cannot outperform bonds because of the income component.
Little did hmc realize that it is not true all the time..
(-25%) bring it on....
btw, andrew lahde who went to UCLA returned 1000%, closed shop and is probably smoking lots of weed in Jamiaca....
Posted by guest , Dec 20, 2008 12:20PM
I know one of these guys from when he first started out. He mentioned many times that contracts are structured to keep incentives aligned with the fund and that there is a clawback. This guy's a pretty solid, unflashy, modest type; if he got paid the bucks, he didn't bully anyone into doing so.
These guys may even be getting some of their pay for previous years' performance -- which would be a smart structure to keep people during bad times. I won't criticize Harvard's fund managers until I know the contract structures.
Harvard (the school) can suck my left nut, though. I'm tired of them claiming some of the endowment is for a rainy day -- so don't tax them. If some funds were for a rainy day, it's time to replace words with actions.
Posted by guest , Dec 20, 2008 6:38PM
if you look at a guy like Jim Cramer, you'll be afraid to send your kids there.
Posted by guest , Dec 21, 2008 1:13AM
@11
Hmc/Harvard people are smart but I don't like the master of the universe schtick.....
Posted by guest , Dec 30, 2008 11:52PM
Harvard folks make mistakes too. I'm not sure we can trust any of them anymore.
For instance, Past Harvard President, Dr. Neil L. Rudenstine, is a Trustee on an unpopular $400mn effort to dismantle a great American Cultural Landmark, Philadelphia's Monticello, The Barnes Foundation in Merion PA.
The project has been called PA's Bridge To Nowhere.
An early proponent of the Barnes Move, PA Senator Vincent Fumo, is now on trial for corruption on an unrelated matter.
The project is being funded, in part, by an UNDEBATED $107mn midnight pork insertion in the 2002 PA Legislative Budget; and, since that time, such 11th Hour UNDEBATED Budget EARMARKS have been banned by the PA Legislature.
Like the Harvard I remember, The Barnes Museum on Its 12 acre Arboretum is a sacred American place. Like Harvard, just being at The Barnes Golden Age Mansion stimulates the imagination.
I liken The psychological effect of The proposed Barnes Move upon Philadelphia to the effect that cutting all the Elm trees in good Old Harvard Yard would have on all the Harvard Alumni & Students.
Dr. Rudenstine's position on this shameful Barnes Move is going to give Harvard a very negative reputation for years to come.
I remember when being a President of Harvard meant something. Dr. Rudenstine is taking all that Presidential greatness down a peg by advocating this bizarre Move.
Voices from all around the Country have cried out against this move - from the Smithsonian Museum to The New Yorker to the LA Times.
GUARD THE BARNES GATE DR. RUDENSTINE. KEEP THE BARNES IN MERION.
Barnesfriends.org; Artjail.org; Barnesfoundation.org
All of you Donors and future Endowers should take heed, Dr. Rudenstine and his fellow 'Trustees' are breaking The Last Will and Testament of Dr. Barnes in their pell-mell effort to dismantle this vibrant Landmark of American Cultural and Educational History. Richard