The managers of Harvard University’s $51bn endowment have warned of substantial markdowns to come in its private equity and venture capital portfolio, predicting heavy losses for institutional investors.
The largest US university investment fund expects “meaningful adjustments” to its private fund holdings at the end of the year, it said on Thursday, as annual audits force private equity and venture capital funds to cut the valuations of unlisted assets.
Harvard’s endowment lost 1.8 per cent for the year ended June 30, 2022, although it still outperformed the S&P 500, which fell 11 per cent, as its portfolio of private assets mitigated a sharp drop in public stock markets.