Yale Endowment Returns 6.8%, Duke’s Shrinks by $100 Million

The Ivy school again produces strong returns, as the North Carolina university’s long-term pool gains only 0.7%.


Fiscal 2020 was a tale of two endowments for Yale and Duke universities, two of the country’s most prestigious colleges. Yale’s endowment earned a 6.8% investment return net of fees for the fiscal year that ended June 30 to raise its asset value to $31.2 billion from $30.3 billion last year, while Duke’s long-term pool reported a meager 0.7% return as its asset value declined to $8.5 billion from $8.6 billion last year.

Yale reported that its portfolio returned 10.9% and 9.9% annualized over the past 10 and 20 years, respectively. This is compared with the broad domestic stock market’s annualized returns of 13.7% and 6.2%, respectively, and the domestic bond market’s returns of 3.8% and 5.1%, respectively, over the past 10 and 20 years.

According to Yale, the endowment has nearly doubled over the past 10 years from $16.7 billion and more than tripled over the past 20 years from $10 billion.

Over the past 10 years, domestic equities have returned 12.8% for Yale’s portfolio, underperforming its benchmark by 1% annually, while its foreign equities returned 15.8%, easily beating its benchmark by 10.7% annually. Venture capital produced an annualized return of 21.3%, while leveraged buyouts returned 14.6%, and absolute return produced an annualized return of 5.3% annually over the past 10 years. Real estate and natural resources contributed annual returns of 9.7% and 4.4%, respectively, over that same time frame.

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And over the past 20 years, Yale’s domestic equities returned 9.7%, 3.5% ahead of the benchmark’s returns annually, while foreign equities produced returns of 14.8%, beating its benchmark by 9.3% annually. Venture capital returned 11.6% annually, leveraged buyouts returned 11.2%, and absolute return produced an annualized return of 8.1% over the same time period. Meanwhile, real estate and natural resources contributed annual returns over the past 20 years of 8.3% and 13.6%, respectively.

Yale’s asset allocation targets for fiscal year 2021 are 23.5% in absolute return, 23.5% in venture capital, 17.5% in leveraged buyouts, 11.75% in foreign equity, 9.5% in real estate, 7.5% in bonds and cash, 4.5% in natural resources, and 2.25% in domestic equities.

Meanwhile, Duke University Management Company (DUMAC), which manages Duke’s endowment, reported that its long-term pool, the primary investment vehicle for its assets, barely produced a return in what it called “an extraordinarily volatile year for investors.” Last year, the endowment’s portfolio returned 6.9%.

Besides the annual return and asset value estimation, DUMAC has not yet provided details on its portfolio’s fiscal 2020 returns in terms of asset performance and asset allocation. DUMAC said it seeks to achieve an annualized real rate of return of at least 5% net of fees to fund the university’s spending and to allow for growth of the endowment after considering the effects of inflation.

“In a year where you have essentially close to a flat return on the endowment, when you pay out at a 5% rate, obviously, you’re going to essentially lower the endowment by that amount,” Duke President Vincent Price told The Chronicle, the university’s student newspaper. 

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Mubadala Puts $2 Billion into Silver Lake for 25-Year Strategy

The fund has also taken a minority equity stake of less than 10% in the firm.


Abu Dhabi sovereign wealth fund Mubadala Investment Company is investing $2 billion into technology investor Silver Lake to develop a 25-year investment strategy. 

Mubadala has also taken a minority equity interest of less than 10% in the Menlo Park, California-based private equity fund, the firms said Wednesday. The Abu Dhabi fund bought the interest from investor Neuberger Berman’s subsidiary Dyal, which first acquired the stake in 2016 and plans to retain about half its original investment. 

“Our goal is to be well-positioned to take advantage of this accelerated digital transformation and its potential, and we believe Silver Lake is the right partner and that this is an optimal structure for us,” Mubadala Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer Khaldoon Al Mubarak said in a statement. 

The pair previously worked together on other investments, such as Alphabet’s “moonshot” driverless car company Waymo and the India-based digital services company Jio Platforms. 

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The US$232 billion Mubadala fund has significant stakes in other technology firms. It recently took a controlling stake in biopharmaceuticals company PCI Pharma Services.

And in 2007, it took a significant stake in American semiconductor company Advanced Micro Devices (AMD). Later, it formed, and currently owns, California-based semiconductor GlobalFoundries, which it created after separating the business from the manufacturing arm of AMD.

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Mubadala Suspends Future Goldman Ventures Due to 1MDB Scandal

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