<p>Texas University Endowment Storing About $1 Billion in Gold Bars</p>
<p>April 16, 2011, 5:50 AM EDT
By David Mildenberg and Pham-Duy Nguyen</p>
<p>April 16 (Bloomberg) -- The University of Texas Investment Management Co., the second-largest U.S. academic endowment, took delivery of almost $1 billion in gold bullion and is storing the bars in a New York vault, according to the funds board.</p>
<p>The fund, whose $19.9 billion in assets ranked it behind Harvard Universitys endowment as of August, according to the National Association of College and University Business Officers, added about $500 million in gold investments to an existing stake last year, said Bruce Zimmerman, the endowments chief executive officer. The holdings are worth about $987 million, based on yesterdays closing price of $1,486 an ounce for Comex futures.</p>
<p>The decision to turn the funds investment into gold bars was influenced by Kyle Bass, a Dallas hedge fund manager and member of the endowments board, Zimmerman said at its annual meeting on April 14. Bass made $500 million on the U.S. subprime-mortgage collapse.</p>
<p>Central banks are printing more money than they ever have, so whats the value of money in terms of purchases of goods and services, Bass said yesterday in a telephone interview. I look at gold as just another currency that they cant print any more of.</p>
<p>Gold reached an all-time high of $1,489.10 an ounce yesterday in New York as sovereign debt concerns boosted demand for the metal as a store of value. Gold has climbed 28 percent in the past year on Comex.</p>
<p>The endowment, which oversees funds held by the University of Texas System and Texas A&M University, has 6,643 bars of bullion, or 664,300 ounces, in a Comex-registered vault in New York owned by HSBC Holdings Plc, the London-based bank, according to a report distributed at the meeting in Austin.</p>
<p>--Editors: Ted Bunker, William Glasgall.</p>
<p>Source: Texas</a> University Endowment Storing About $1 Billion in Gold Bars - Businessweek</p>