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Legislators Urge Endowments to Boost Asset Manager Diversity

NACUBO says Congress members are preaching to the choir.

Six members of Congress have sent a letter to the National Association of College and University Business Officers (NACUBO) calling for greater diversity among asset managers handling endowment funds of higher education institutions.

The letter cited recent research from the Knight Foundation that found that women and minorities manage a mere 1.3% of the $69 trillion asset management industry. The letter also cited a 2018 NACUBO-TIAA survey of 802 institutions in which only 4% had a diversity and inclusion policy for hiring managers.

“The lack of utilization of women and minority-owned firms is indefensible given the findings on investment performance,” said the letter. “We write today to both raise awareness and to ask for the support of college and university endowment managers in correcting this injustice.”

The letter was signed by Reps. Emanuel Cleaver, II (D-MO), Beatty, Marcia Fudge (D-OH), Hank Johnson (D-GA), Gregory Meeks (D-NY), and Terri Sewell (D-AL).

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“The disparities that exist in the asset management industry are unconscionable, and improving opportunities for diverse managers will go a long way toward equal opportunity and healthy capital allocation in the US,” said Cleaver. “The numbers clearly demonstrate that firms with greater diversity outperform their counterparts, and that colleges and universities are in a position to take advantage of this fact.”

In response to the letter, NACUBO CEO Susan Whealler Johnston wrote back essentially saying that the legislators were preaching to the choir. She said she welcomed the opportunity to show how NACUBO “has highlighted the importance of female- and minority-owned asset management firms’ active participation in the management of college and university investment assets.”

She added that the association was “keenly focused on the importance of diversity in asset management positions, as well as diversity in the business officer profession as a whole.”

Johnston said that NACUBO was not only aware of the research cited in the letter from the representatives, but that it has taken steps to underline the findings for its member institutions.

In April, the association released a podcast featuring Juan Martinez, CFO of the Knight Foundation, who discussed the findings of the report cited in the letter from the Congress members. Martinez is scheduled to speak to NACUBO’s member institutions, and the broader asset management community at the association’s endowment and debt management forum in February.

“NACUBO is also committed to our own internal diversity because it enriches and strengthens how we advance our mission,” wrote Johnston. “We are fully focused on equality and believe deeply in diversity of race, gender, sexual orientation, religion, ethnicity, and national origin, among other characteristics that make us each unique.”

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Home > News > Alternatives > Harvard Faces Protests over Its Amazon Land Holding
Alternatives

Harvard Faces Protests over Its Amazon Land Holding

Activists are urging the university to sell its stake of land near the Brazilian rainforest.
By Staff Report

The Harvard Management Company, which oversees the university’s investments, is under fire for owning environmentally sensitive land near the Amazon in Brazil, which critics say leads to environmental devastation.

The Harvard Crimson reported Tuesday that activist students are demanding that the university sell 300,000 hectares of wooded grass that borders the rainforest.

On Monday morning, about a dozen members of Divest Harvard conducted a sit-in at the Science Center Plaza. At the demonstration, Altamiran L. Ribeiro, an organizer from the Pastoral Land Commission of the Catholic Church in Piaui, Brazil, spoke about Harvard’s land ownership in Brazil. ActionAid, a global social justice and anti-poverty group, joined the protest.

Speaking in Portuguese through an interpreter, Ribeiro told about 20 protesters that Harvard’s land practices lead to environmental devastation.

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“Each piece of land that Harvard buys, in any part of the world, they are grabbing land that belongs to someone else,” said Ribeiro. “Every dollar that Harvard invests in soy production for biofuels is also destroying lives because in soy production they use pesticides that contaminate the soil and water and the people who live around it.”

Ribeiro added that the land investments harm water sources that affect the indigenous people in the region.

“We cannot allow [Harvard] to say they’re investing there to guarantee the future of the University and those who will have their pensions and investments because that’s a big lie,” he said. “The profit that comes from those investments is a profit that is tainted with blood, pain and suffering from those communities.”

In 2018, activist group Genetic Resources Action International reported that Harvard owned the land. It also found that Harvard’s endowment spent around $1 billion to acquire control of an estimated 850,000 hectares of farmland around the world.

In 2017, Divest Harvard successfully demanded that the university sell investments in fossil fuels. This came after the group found out that, of the 1% of the $40 billion endowment that is publicly listed, $5.6 million was invested in the fossil fuel industry.

A HMC spokesperson declined to comment.

The Harvard endowment was valued at $40.9 billion as of June 30. It recorded a 6.5% return on assets during fiscal year 2019. According to 2017 tax filings, CEO NP “Narv” Narvekar recorded a $9.3 million annual salary, with a $5.5 million bonus.

Rebeca Serson, a student from Sao Paulo, called the university’s land ownership practices “deplorable.”

“How can this institution that we look up to do so much contributing to something like this?”

 

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Harvard Management Company Eschews Fossil Fuel Investments

Harvard Alumni Call for New Investment Strategy

Harvard Endowment Names Columbia’s Narv Narvekar CEO

 

 

 

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