Sunday 21 December 2008

Harvard Endowment Fund had fallen 22 percent

Harvard Endowment Managers Made $26.8 Million

By GERALDINE FABRIKANT
Published: December 19, 2008
The Harvard Management Company, which handles the university’s endowment, said on Friday that the compensation for five of its top managers and its former chief executive was $26.8 million for the fiscal year ended June 30.
The amount included $921,000 for the former chief executive, Mohamed El-Erian, who left in the middle of the fiscal year and returned to the Pacific Investment Management Company. The value of the endowment at the end of fiscal 2008 was $36.9 billion.
The highest paid of the six men was Stephen Blyth, managing director for international fixed income, who received $6.4 million.
Marc Seidner, managing director for domestic fixed income, received $6.3 million; Stanley Zuzic, senior vice president for domestic equities, got $4.9 million; Steven Alperin, managing director for emerging market equities, $4.4 million; and Andrew Wiltshire, managing director for natural resources, $3.9 million.
In past years, the compensation of the endowment’s managers prompted controversy because some academicians and alumni viewed it as excessive in the context of an academic institution.
In the wake of the controversy, Jack Meyer, the chief executive, left in 2005 to form his own hedge fund.
In 2003, the top group of managers earned $107.5 million. A year later, the figure was $78.4 million. In 2005, the board of the management company cut it to $56.8 million.
Since then, Harvard Management’s board has put in place mechanisms to limit the total annual compensation. Internal managers are compensated in a package that includes a bonus calculated on the value added in excess of specific market index benchmarks. Last year, the endowment posted an 8.6 percent return.
After Mr. El-Erian’s departure, Robert S. Kaplan, a professor of management at Harvard Business School, served as chief executive without compensation. Since July, the endowment has been run by Jane L. Mendillo, who formerly ran the Wellesley endowment.
Recently, Harvard announced that the value of the endowment had fallen 22 percent as of the end of October and that it could decline 30 percent by the end of the 2009 fiscal year.
Many schools have taken the unusual step of putting out interim numbers in part to provide some guidance about necessary belt-tightening measures.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/20/business/20harvard.html?ref=business

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