University of Arkansas Foundation, Fayetteville, returned a net 2.9% on its endowment for the fiscal year ended June 30, exceeding its benchmark return of 2%, confirmed Vickie Ferguson, the foundation’s vice president and director of investments, in an email.
Although a full breakout of returns by asset class was not provided, the foundation said in a news release that the $1.9 billion endowment “benefited from strong returns from private equity, global public equity and fixed income, as well as the continuing multiyear effort to reduce investment manager fees across all asset classes.”
As of June 30, the endowment’s asset allocation was 50% global equities, 24% private investments, and 13% each fixed income and hedge funds.
For the three, five and 10 years ended June 30, the endowment pool returned an annualized 6.3%, 6.4%, and 8.5%, respectively. Benchmark returns were not provided.
In fiscal year 2019, the endowment returned 5.9%.
