Stanford Management Co. returned a net 8.4% for the year ended June 30, said an Oct. 10 news release from Stanford University, Palo Alto, Calif.
The management company, which manages $42.8 billion in merged investment pools that include the university's endowment, Stanford Health Care and Lucile Packard Children's Hospital, did not provide benchmark information, but said the return for the period trailed the median 10.1% fiscal-year return for U.S. colleges and universities, according to Cambridge Associates data.
For the five and 10 years ended June 30, the merged investment pools returned an annualized net 9.9% and 8.6%, respectively.
The merged investment pool had returned a net 4.4% for the year ended June 30, 2023.
The merged investment pools’ positive return this year was primarily driven by publicly traded securities, although just as in 2023, those returns were diluted by weaker performance in private asset classes, said Robert Wallace, CEO of Stanford Management Co., in the news release.
“While private asset classes have detracted from recent performance, they have enhanced our results over longer periods and are likely to continue to do so in the coming decade,” said Wallace.
For the year ended June 30, Stanford’s return was below the median return of 11.1% among the 16 college and university endowments whose returns for the period have been tracked by Pensions & Investments as of Oct. 10.
The news release did not provide returns by asset class. The merged pool’s target allocation is 38% private equity, 19% absolute return, 16% international equities, 10% real assets, 9% fixed income and cash and 8% domestic equities.
The university’s fiscal year ends on Aug. 31.