The FT reported on Monday that Oxford University Endowment Managers have bucked the trend by reporting only a 4.8% fall in the value of the assets under management. This is a good result compared to Yale and Harvard who reported falls of nearly 30% and an average 23% fall in US Colleges. Sandra Robertson, previously Co-Head of Portfolio Management at the Wellcome Trust, advised that universities should "should not try and emulate the Yale model". The Yale model, pioneered by David Swensen advocates universities should shift their endowment money out of traditional investments such as stocks and bonds and into higher-yielding ones like private equity, hedge funds, and real estate. The OUEM website says of their investment philosophy, "we believe we should diversify sources of return and build portfolios of investments which can work through a variety of investment cycles."
