Harvard Endowment’s 2 Percent Loss Magnifies Decade of Struggle
- Biggest higher-education fund trails peers and broader market
- Its $35.7 billion fund nears end of search for another chief
Harvard University's Business School stands in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
Photographer: Brent Lewin/BloombergThis article is for subscribers only.
Harvard University’s endowment, searching for new leadership amid a year of turmoil, reported a 2 percent annual investment loss, magnifying a decade of lackluster returns compared with the school’s elite rivals.
The world’s biggest college fund shrunk by $1.9 billion, to $35.7 billion after also accounting for ever-expanding spending on buildings, scholarships and research. Harvard blamed the outsize loss, for the year ended June 30, primarily on poor investments in stocks as well as natural-resource holdings in South America.