Kansas State University endowment posts 5.7% return for fiscal year

Kansas State University Foundation's $913 million long-term investment pool of endowment assets returned a net 5.7% for the fiscal year ended June 30, said Paul Chai, senior director of investments.

The Manhattan, Kan.-based foundation's return well exceeded the benchmark return of -0.1% for the period, a performance report on its website said.

Among the eight university endowments whose fiscal-year 2022 returns have been tracked by Pensions & Investments as of Wednesday, the KSU Foundation has the highest return yet recorded. The median return among the endowments tracked is -2%.

For the five and 10 years ended June 30, the investment pool returned an annualized 11.4% and 9.3%, respectively, above their respective benchmarks of 9.3% and 8.3%.

The investment pool had returned a net 35.7% for the fiscal year ended June 30, 2021.

Mr. Chai said the foundation does not provide returns by asset class, and he declined to comment further on the investment pool's outperformance for the period, which overcame a challenging market environment for public equities and fixed income. For the year ended June 30, the Russell 3000 index and Bloomberg U.S. Aggregate Bond index returned -13.9% and -10.3%, respectively, in sharp contrast to returns of 44.2% and 4.6% for the year ended June 30, 2021.

As of June 30, the investment pool's actual allocation was 63% global equities (consisting of both public and private equities), 20% inflation hedge (real assets including commodities, real estate and Treasury inflation-protected securities), 10% deflation hedge (core fixed income and cash) and 7% diversifying strategies (hedge funds).