University of Chicago Endowment Returns 8%

The University of Chicago endowment’s investment portfolio returned 8% for the fiscal year ended June 30, raising its market value to an all-time high of $8.2 billion from $7.5 billion at the end of fiscal 2017.

This is down from last year’s returns of 11.4%, and just short of the Cambridge Associates’ median return for colleges and universities of 8.3%.

The university said the endowment’s investment returns have boosted its market value by nearly $5.4 billion since the financial crisis of 2008 and 2009, thanks to a 9.5% average return. It also said the average compounded investment result for the university over the past 10, 15, and 20 years was 5.8%, 9%, and 8.6%, respectively.

“Working closely with the board of trustees’ investment committee and financial planning committee, as well as university leadership, we continue to believe that an integrated approach to the university’s fiscal health will best support our mission in all types of market conditions on a long-term basis,” said Mark Schmid, the university’s vice president and chief investment officer.

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The university’s endowment is mainly invested in the Total Return Investment Pool (TRIP), which has an asset allocation of 31% in absolute return, 25% in global equities, 13.5% in private equity, 8.0% in fixed income, 8.0% in real estate, 7.5% in natural resources, 4.5% in private debt, 2.0% in “TRIP protection,” and 0.5% in cash and cash equivalents.

Tags: Endowments, Fiscal 2018, Mark Schmid, University of Chicago

A slump in the life expectancy forecast has delayed the incremental climb of the Dutch pension age, according to Wouter Koolmees, the Netherlands minister for social affairs.

As a result, the retirement age won’t be raised in 2024.

The government has been gradually increasing its pension eligibility age, beginning in 2012, when the retirement age was 65. The retirement age, currently 66, is set to jump by another three months next year.

The current schedule would set the pension age at 67 and three months in 2022, to keep the pension program affordable. The government also has allowed employees within five years of retirement to make additional contributions to the program to bolster their benefits.

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The nation’s pension age is based partly on an annual longevity estimate from Statistics Netherlands. The average life expectancy in the Netherlands is about 81½ years.

The Dutch authorities concluded that life expectancy had dropped by about five months for 65-year-olds in 2017 due to the winter’s flu epidemic. As a result, the pension age won’t rise past its 2022 bar, and will now increase in accordance with life expectancy from that point.