Christopher L. Bittman joined Perella Weinberg Partners as a partner and CIO of the firm’s Agility Funds multimanager business, Perella Weinberg announced today.
Mr. Bittman had served as CIO of the $874 million University of Colorado Foundation, Boulder, since 2004.
The foundation will become a client of Agility, which will manage $825 million of its portfolio, effective Wednesday. The new assets will roughly triple Agility’s client asset total to $1.25 billion, while lifting Perella Weinberg’s overall assets under management to $4.7 billion, the spokeswoman said.
In a telephone interview, Mr. Bittman said today’s announcement followed a year of internal debate at the University of Colorado Foundation over how best to pay for the ever-growing resources needed to deliver the due diligence and monitoring that University of Colorado had come to enjoy.
Under the new arrangement, the foundation will pay similar costs while garnering the services of a much deeper management team, Mr. Bittman said.
Wayne Hutchens, the president and CEO of the University of Colorado Foundation, couldn’t immediately be reached for comment.
Mr. Bittman predicted no wholesale changes to Colorado’s manager lineup. He said $100 invested by the foundation five years ago has grown to $128, while the same invested in the S&P 500 would now be worth $90 — “a pretty compelling reason” not to change a strategy that is “consistent with the approach at Perella Weinberg Partners.”
Also, Bob Boldt, former CIO at the University of Texas Investment Management Co. who served as Agility’s CIO since launching the division in March 2007, will become Agility’s executive chairman, while taking on a bigger role in Perella Weinberg’s broader asset management operations, according to a Perella Weinberg spokeswoman. UTIMCO runs the $21.5 billion endowment of the University of Texas System, Austin.
