哈佛擁有全美最多的大學(xué)捐款，但它的投資回報(bào)率卻并不理想。

哈佛大學(xué)收到的社會(huì)捐款是美國所有學(xué)院或大學(xué)里最多的，截止到2015年6月底，這筆巨款的價(jià)值已達(dá)到327億美元。但根據(jù)《財(cái)富》的分析，過去五年，哈佛大學(xué)的投資回報(bào)率卻低于其他所有常青藤名校。

這個(gè)消息可能會(huì)讓哈佛大學(xué)的員工和校友感到驚訝，因?yàn)樗麄兘?jīng)常被告知，這筆捐款在哈佛的投資運(yùn)營機(jī)構(gòu)哈佛大學(xué)投資管理公司的管理下，投資回報(bào)率總是超過基準(zhǔn)水平。比如，該公司CEO簡?門迪羅上月就在一封公開信中寫道：

“這標(biāo)志著哈佛大學(xué)投資管理公司的回報(bào)率連續(xù)第四年超過了Policy Portfolio基準(zhǔn)。正如我們之前指出的那樣，投資收益回報(bào)率要想超過代表市場(chǎng)的Policy Portfolio基準(zhǔn)，并非是輕易就能實(shí)現(xiàn)的，也并非每年都能指望實(shí)現(xiàn)?！?/p>

但現(xiàn)實(shí)是，哈佛大學(xué)設(shè)定的這個(gè)門檻，只是保證其捐款基金的投資回報(bào)能適當(dāng)?shù)貪M足大學(xué)本身的財(cái)務(wù)需求，并不能用來評(píng)價(jià)哈佛大學(xué)投資管理公司相對(duì)其他知名大學(xué)（或相對(duì)于廣域市場(chǎng)指數(shù)）的投資表現(xiàn)。

如果和其他知名大學(xué)相比，哈佛的投資成績就相當(dāng)慘不忍睹了。它的五年期年化回報(bào)率只有1.7%。要知道在同一時(shí)間段內(nèi)，哈佛是美國25所捐贈(zèng)收入最多的大學(xué)或?qū)W院中，唯一一所五年期年化回報(bào)率低于2%的大學(xué)，就連與它最接近的康奈爾大學(xué)也達(dá)到了2.2%。

另外，在投資咨詢公司W(wǎng)ilshire Associates建立的一個(gè)數(shù)據(jù)庫中，17所捐贈(zèng)收入超過5億美元的大學(xué)的五年期投資回報(bào)率中值為3.38%。據(jù)信，哈佛大學(xué)應(yīng)該不包含在這個(gè)樣本庫中。難怪在門迪羅公開信里的“投資回報(bào)”表中缺少了一個(gè)特定的時(shí)間段。

Harvard has America’s largest college or university endowment, but not nearly its best.

Harvard University has the nation’s largest college or university endowment, valued at $32.7 billion through the end of June. It also has worse investment returns than any of its peers over the past five years, according to aFortune analysis.

This may come as a surprise to Harvard employees and alums, who have been told that the endowment’s investment arm — Harvard Management Company — regularly beats its benchmarks. For example, HMC CEO Jane Mendillo wrote the following last month in a public letter:

“This also marks the fourth consecutive year in which HMC’s return exceeded the Policy Portfolio benchmark. As we have noted previously, earning returns in excess of the markets as represented in the Policy Portfolio is not easily done and is not expected every year.”

But the reality is that such thresholds are pre-set as baselines for making sure that the endowment can adequately meet the university’s financial needs, rather than judgments on HMC’s performance relative to other large schools (or to broader market indices).

On that latter basis, Harvard has been a virtual trainwreck. Its five-year annualized performance is 1.7%. For context, Harvard is the only one of the 25 largest U.S. college or university endowments to have returned less than 2% over that time period, with the next closest being Cornell University at 2.2%.

Moreover, investment advisory firm Wilshire Associates reports a median five-year return of 3.38% for the 17 schools within its database that have endowments larger than $500 million.Harvard is not believed to be included in that sample.No wonder the “Investment Return” chart in Mendillo’s letter was missing a certain time period:

同樣值得注意的是，這個(gè)五年周期開始時(shí)，也正是門迪羅就任哈佛大學(xué)投資管理公司CEO之時(shí)（門迪羅于2008年7月1日就任）。不過，他履新后沒幾個(gè)月，雷曼兄弟就破產(chǎn)倒閉了。此外，哈佛投資管理公司在2009財(cái)年獲得的負(fù)27.3%回報(bào)率，也可以怪在前任CEO穆罕默德?伊爾?埃里安（現(xiàn)任太平洋投資管理公司CEO）的頭上。

雖然如此，但其他大學(xué)的捐贈(zèng)投資也一樣經(jīng)歷了金融風(fēng)暴的洗禮。此外，哈佛近期的投資回報(bào)也沒什么值得大書特書的。它的三年期回報(bào)數(shù)據(jù)在我們這個(gè)組別中只能排到第20名，一年期回報(bào)率更是排在后半截。

好學(xué)生的辯解

一些知情人士就哈佛如此有失水準(zhǔn)的投資成績進(jìn)行了一番辯解，理由有三：

1、規(guī)模越大，就越難以做得出眾。

2、哈佛對(duì)美國國內(nèi)上市證券的敞口要比很多其他大學(xué)小得多，而這些大學(xué)則幸運(yùn)地趕上了最近這輪牛市。

3、哈佛大學(xué)擁有相當(dāng)大的非流動(dòng)資產(chǎn)，其中有些資產(chǎn)在金融危機(jī)期間被迫大幅折價(jià)售出，這幾次折價(jià)賤賣也一直在拖五年收益率的后腿。

然而，這三條理由每條都很容易被駁斥。

第一，哈佛一直是全美獲得捐款最多的大學(xué)，但它過去的投資業(yè)績可以毫不費(fèi)勁地超越兄弟院校。比如，截止2012年6月30日，它的20年期投資回報(bào)率位列第五位。

第二，不可否認(rèn)，哈佛的排名因?yàn)槠湎鄬?duì)缺乏上市證券而有所下降。但有些學(xué)校的證券比重比它還小，但投資回報(bào)卻要遠(yuǎn)遠(yuǎn)超過哈佛，比如耶魯。另外，越來越多的大學(xué)在捐贈(zèng)資金的投資上都采用了“耶魯模式”來配置資金，這已經(jīng)不是什么秘密了，這也說明就整體而言，美國大學(xué)捐贈(zèng)基金持有上市證券的比例不升反降。

第三，過去五年里，哈佛實(shí)際上加大了對(duì)非流動(dòng)資產(chǎn)的敞口，包括私募股權(quán)和房地產(chǎn)。所以說，目前的管理層不僅贊成二級(jí)銷售（有可能太快了），同時(shí)可能也在為經(jīng)濟(jì)再次探底時(shí)或?qū)⒊霈F(xiàn)的資金緊縮做準(zhǔn)備。

不過，這些似乎都沒有讓哈佛投資管理公司的董事會(huì)感到擔(dān)憂——至少在公開場(chǎng)合上。

哈佛大學(xué)投資管理公司的董事會(huì)成員，私募股權(quán)機(jī)構(gòu)銀湖公司聯(lián)合創(chuàng)始人格蘭?哈金斯表示：“我認(rèn)為，門迪羅部署的團(tuán)隊(duì)會(huì)非常成功，我們回看這五年，會(huì)覺得她干得非常好?！?/p>

門迪羅未能接受此次采訪。

哈佛如何在投資上打敗耶魯

據(jù)彭博社報(bào)道，哈佛大學(xué)正急于出臺(tái)一套方案來解決投資回報(bào)的問題。哈佛的目標(biāo)是要超過耶魯大學(xué)，后者過去5年的平均投資回報(bào)率位居常青藤聯(lián)盟之首。

哈佛大學(xué)坐擁376億美元社會(huì)捐款，相比之下，耶魯獲得的捐款只有大約240億美元。不過，耶魯大學(xué)的捐款基金年均回報(bào)率高達(dá)14%，而哈佛則足足比低了4%。

彭博社還指出，從2014年到2015年6月，哈佛的單年回報(bào)率只有5.8%，低于常青藤聯(lián)盟平均值2%。

2015年10月，彭博社曾報(bào)道稱，華爾街金融大亨和哈佛商學(xué)院的校友們已經(jīng)就此事專門舉行了會(huì)議，探討如何能在投資回報(bào)上超過耶魯和普林斯頓等老牌競(jìng)爭對(duì)手。

“讓我感到寬慰的是，兩邊都有人參加，因此我覺得我們肯定能妥當(dāng)?shù)赝瓿蛇@個(gè)任務(wù)?！贝舜位鹪鲩L方案的起草人，哈佛大學(xué)投資管理公司CEO史蒂芬?布萊斯在接受彭博社采訪時(shí)稱。

在談及哈佛最近為促進(jìn)捐款投資回報(bào)而采取的措施時(shí)，布萊斯表示：“這是一個(gè)重要的變革時(shí)期。我們有了新的CEO、新的高管團(tuán)隊(duì)、新的戰(zhàn)略和新的文化?！保ㄘ?cái)富中文網(wǎng)）

譯者：樸成奎

審校：任文科

Equally notable is that the five-year period matches up exactly to when Mendillo took over as CEO, on July 1, 2008. To be sure, she inherited the portfolio just months before Lehman Brothers collapsed, and most of the fiscal 2009 return of negative 27.3% can be pinned on her predecessor Mohamed El-Erian (now CEO of PIMCO).

That said, other endowments also had to weather the financial crisis. Moreover, Harvard’s more recent returns also aren’t much to write home about. It’s three-year figure ranks 20th in our group, and its one-year return ia easily in the bottom half.

Excuses from this excellent student

Those close to the situation offer three defenses for Harvard’s sub-par performance:

The larger you are, the harder it is to outperform.

2. Harvard has much less exposure to domestic public equities than do many other endowments, which have been able to ride the recent bull run.

3. Harvard has a particularly large slug of illiquid assets, some of which it felt compelled to sell at deep discounts during the financial crisis. Those sales continue to be a drag on five-year returns.

Unfortunately, each of those arguments are easily countered.

First, Harvard has always been the nation’s largest endowment — but it had little trouble outperforming in the past. For example, through June 30, 2012 it ranked #5 over a 20-year period.

Second, it certainly is true that Harvard’s rank has slipped due to its relative dearth of public equities. But other schools with even smaller public equity allocations — such as Yale — have performed much better. Moreover, it is no secret that more and more endowments have been adopting the “Yale model” of allocation, which means that public equity holdings actually have been decreasing over time, not increasing, in the broader endowment world.

Third, Harvard has actually increased its target exposure to illiquid assets over the past five years, including in private equity and real estate. So not only did current management approve the secondary sale (arguably too soon), but it also may be setting itself up for a similar liquidity crunch were the economy to tank again.

None of this, however, seems to be worrying the HMC board of directors. Or at least not openly.

“I think that the team Jane has put in place is prepared to be very successful, and that we’ll look back in five years and think she’s done a terrific job,” says HMC director Glenn Hutchins, co-founder of private equity firm Silver Lake.

Mendillo was not made available for this story.

How Harvard Plans to Beat Yale at Investing

The university is scrambling to come up with a solution, especially as it aims to take on Yale, which has seen the largest average annual returns over the last five years, according to Bloomberg.

Harvard has a $37.6 billion endowment, including an average return rate nearly 4% off that of Yale, the top Ivy League university by average annual return with 14%. Yale’s endowment is approximately $24 billion.

Harvard’s 5.8% one-year gain up to June, for instance, was behind the Ivy League average by 2%, the publication added.

In October 2015, Bloomberg reported that Wall Street financiers and Harvard Business School alums gathered to discuss how to beat rivals, such as Yale and Princeton.

“It was kind of reassuring,” Stephen Blyth, who drafted a plan to grow the fund as CEO of the Harvard Management Co. in an interview with Bloomberg. “There were people on both sides so I felt we must have it about right.”

“It’s been a period of significant change,” said Blyth of recent management decisions in an attempt to boost the endowment. “This is a new CEO, this is a new executive team, this is a new strategy, this is a new culture.”