Ivy Update

We took a deep dive into how the top universities managed their endowments in our book The Ivy Portfolio.  Hallmarks of the endowment style include a true global focus, a heavy weighting to equity like assets, and active management in asset classes where appropriate.  Two of the biggest challenges this allocation faces are a deflationary deleveraging like we experienced in 2008 and 2009, and dealing with liquidity issues of a somewhat illiquid portfolio.  We spent a few chapters talking about our ideas on how to manage these drawbacks by using risk management on a portfolio of publicly traded funds, as well as looking to some of the best stockpickers through their government filings.

Anyways, the Harvard and Yale annual reports are always a fun read. Yale breaks out their allocation by year, and I think you will find some interesting surprises in there.

Below are a few charts before the download:

—-

—-

Download the PDFs here:

Harvard

Yale