Carnegie Mellon University's $3.1 billion endowment returned a net 2.9% for the fiscal year ended June 30, said Charles Kennedy, chief investment officer, in investment highlights posted on the Pittsburgh-based university's website.
For the three, five and 10 years ended June 30, the endowment returned an annualized net 12.4%, 10.1% and 9.9%, respectively.
Kennedy did not provide specific benchmark information, but he said returns compared "favorably with relevant benchmarks."
The endowment had returned a net -3.1% for the fiscal year ended June 30, 2022.
For the most recent fiscal year, the return fell below the median return of 4.35% among the 38 college and university endowments whose returns have been tracked by Pensions & Investments as of Nov. 3.
Kennedy did not provide returns by asset class. He did note in the highlights that the endowment marked 19 years of its current long-term strategy "to shift the equities focus from traditional, publicly traded investments to private investments, primarily utilizing private equity funds globally. We believe that over the long term, private equity investment returns, including those from emerging markets funds, will exceed the returns generated from investing in public securities."
This past fiscal year, endowments with larger allocations to private markets underperformed due to valuations calculated from the prior fiscal year, when public markets had extremely poor returns.
As of June 30, the endowment's actual allocation was 45% private equity, 12% each domestic equities and fixed income, 8% each emerging markets equities and real assets, 6% hedge funds-directional, 5% international developed markets equities, 2% hedge funds-absolute return, and 1% each in cash and fixed income-growth.
