Investment Performance

“The Foundation aids many student enrichment programs that wouldn’t normally be funded by the University. It is instrumental in augmenting the educational experience of the students by funding endowed chairs, graduate assistants and scholarships. It also plays an important role in the Bucks for Brains program by raising private gifts to match every state dollar dedicated for endowed chairs, professorships and increased research activities.”
-Mike Curtin, Vice President of Finance for U of L, and Assistant Treasurer for the Foundation

“The Foundation continues to have excellent returns on its investments due to several factors like excellent local money managers, non-U.S. equity managers, and managers of alternate investments who have done an outstanding job in market assessment of its prospects over a long-term period for making profitable investments.”
-Joyce Hagen, Treasurer of the U of L Foundation

“The Foundation acts as a repository of the funds, which are invested wisely. The returns are used to support the university’s programs. The Foundation’s disciplined and diversified investment strategy has helped it in maximizing the return on the endowment, which has been in the top performance most of the time relative to other endowments, providing a higher return to the University on a regular basis, which in turn places it in the top tier among similar universities. This performance is maintained in the bear as well as bull markets.”
-Burt Deutsch, Chairman, Finance Committee of the Foundation, and Vice Chair of the Foundation

Investment Performance Highlights

• Due to the wise investment strategy of the Foundation, University of Louisville’s total endowment performance has been in the top performance quartile relative to other endowments 5 out 6 periods.
• According to Cambridge Associates LLC, an investment consulting firm, since January 1, 1990, and through recent bull and bear markets, University of Louisville’s endowment performance has been in the 8th percentile; in other words, superior to 92% of the 225 endowments in the universe of non-profit endowments, as well as a smaller subset of colleges and universities for which Cambridge Associates tracks investment performance.
• The Foundation’s portfolio has weathered volatile capital markets exceedingly well over the past decade thanks to a well diversified portfolio that focuses on rebalancing overpriced investments into more attractively valued assets.
• This important achievement is due to the Foundation’s prudent investment policy that involves mitigating the market risk by maintaining a diverse investment pool through the use of target asset allocation guidelines. These guidelines require that the Foundation’s investment pool be made up of a mix of publicly traded fixed income and equity securities, private equities and other nonmarketable securities and real estate investments.