Endowments face a unique set of challenges; their high return goals reflect a need to grow intergenerational equity while meeting ambitious spending requirements. In the forward-looking market environment, BlackRock considers four principles for endowment investing.
ESG and environmentally sustainable investment are increasingly capturing the attention of the institutional investment community. To assess the state of ESG and sustainable investing and how they are changing, Commonfund Forum 2021 offered a discussion focused on these topics featuring three Commonfund leaders with extensive experience.
This blog explores using a spending immunization strategy to manage its liquidity needs. It also describes how one university leveraged its nimble investment process to pivot during the pandemic. From our partner, SEI
University endowments are taking sustainable investing seriously, allocated $378 billion to sustainable investing strategies in 2020 (up 19% from 2018)[1]. For endowments looking to get started — or to expand upon their sustainable practices — here are three ideas to consider.
Traditional stocks and bonds may be challenged in the near-term to produce returns consistent with their historical averages given current high valuations and probable rising interest rates. Therefore, many endowments are looking to alternatives, particularly private assets, in an effort to generate higher rates of returns to help meet their spending rates, mostly hovering around 5%. Despite the pandemic, endowments are susceptible to inflationary pressures that are high now from the shift in policy to fiscal dominance, and pre-recession trends like populism, nationalism, de-globalization and a sign that the US dollar may either lose or have to share its reserve currency status.
