The endowment had an investment loss of 1.4% but it grew 6% to a record $10.7 billion because of an increase of gifts and donations to the school.
Good news. Just can not believe the 1.4% loss in today’s market. Do they seek advice from Wharton?
Actually we’re lucky it wasn’t a larger drop. This was not a good year for universities with the biggest endowments. Things could have been far worse:
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-09-29/cornell-s-endowment-posts-3-3-loss-worst-among-ivies-so-far
So far it appears that among Penn’s peers only Yale and MIT saw marginally positive returns this year. So the fact that Penn’s 1.4% decrease wasn’t larger speaks to the quality of those managing the endowment. That being said, there is always room for improvement
Yup this was not a good year at all. Apart from Yale, Princeton and MIT all other top schools had investment losses and I think other than Penn, all top schools reported endowment value decreases. Penn was able to have an increase because the investment loss was not huge and could be more than offset by the increased donations and the addition of some investments held by the Lancaster Health System which was acquired by Penn.