College students across the country benefit from the reliable returns generated by investments in hedge funds. These investments help students who might not otherwise have the opportunity to earn a college degree by holding down tuition costs and providing the money needed for scholarships. The returns also are used to help construct new buildings on campus and pay professors. In the Cornhusker State, Brian Neale, Chief Investment Officer of the University of Nebraska Foundation, explains how every student and faculty member at the university benefits from investments in alternative assets.
Key Takeaways:
- Alternative assets are a crucial part of the University of Nebraska Foundation’s portfolio and help provide consistent spending power to support the university’s programming.
- “Having active managers at our disposal allows us to mitigate some of the downside that the markets experience.”
- The reliable returns generated by these investments help create academic scholarships, build physical infrastructure, and provide incentives for visiting professors and researchers.
Transcript:
[00.00-00.07] The mission of the University of Nebraska Foundation is to provide resources that enable lives to be changed and lives to be saved.
[00.07-00.16] I have the privilege of being the chief investment officer, so in that role, I’m responsible for the entirety of all of our investable assets.
[00.16-00.36] We have about $3.2 billion spread across seven or eight different portfolios, and we’ve really, over the last 10 years, evolved our portfolio from more traditional assets to be pretty alts-heavy, and we’ve done so for a variety of reasons by finding opportunities you just can’t access in the public markets.
[00.36-00.59] Finding exceptional individuals within the investment management industry to manage money on our behalf, but the objective, of course, is to not only provide $250 million to the university every year but to ensure that we are keeping up with inflation so that the spending power of those dollars remains consistent over time.
[00.59-01.11] We don’t really have much of a margin of error, whether markets are roaring or whether they’re in severe downturn, you know, our mission is to provide that money on a consistent basis.
[01.11-01.19] Having active managers at our disposal allows us to mitigate some of the downside that the markets experience.
[01.19-01.33] The beneficiaries, most directly, are the 50,000+ students. Everything from providing direct academic scholarships to providing physical infrastructure to providing incentives for visiting professors and visiting scholars.
[01.34-01.39] I truly believe every student and faculty member benefits in some way from the support we provide.
[01.40-01.52] I think as the industry, again, continues to think about meeting the needs of investors and allocators, I think we’re going to continue to see that trend of investment dollars into alternatives increasing.
