Institutional endowment investing can be available to individuals
In 1985, Yale University’s Endowment appointed a young David Swensen to become the Chief Investment Officer. From 1985 until he passed away in 2021, Swensen took the Yale Endowment from US$1 billion to over US$40 billion despite disbursements of 5% every year and achieved an unprecedented average annual return of 13.7% over 25 years. The terms institutional investing or endowment investing are so closely associated with Swenson and Yale that it is sometimes even called the Yale model or the Endowment model of asset allocation and investing. One of the key pillars of such a successful investment strategy was not only the heavy equity bias of the portfolio over fixed income and commodities, but also what was at the time a revolutionary idea. The thesis that the Yale endowment held…
