University of Illinois Foundation's $3 billion endowment pool posted a preliminary net return of 10.6% for the fiscal year ended June 30, according to a webcast of the Urbana-based foundation's annual business meeting on Nov. 15.
The endowment pool’s return was above the median return of 9.9% among the 47 college and university endowments whose returns for the period have been tracked by Pensions & Investments as of Nov. 15.
The endowment pool’s benchmark return, annualized returns for longer periods, returns by asset class and actual allocation were not disclosed in the webcast.
Travis Shore, senior vice president and chief investment officer, said in the webcast it has been “a challenging market in some senses.”
“Public equities have been very strong, at least nominally and really led by the largest companies … and predominantly in the U.S,” said Shore. For the year ended June 30, the Russell 3000 index returned 23.1%.
“That’s been challenging as a global multiasset class investor when you have a market sort of more narrowly focused on the largest U.S., primarily technology companies,” said Shore. “I’m happy that is changing, and it’s changed a lot, really in the last three or four months.”
As of June 30, 2023, the foundation's long-term targets were 61% equities, 14% credit, 6% each cash and real estate, 5% interest rates, 4% each commodities and hedged exposure.
