The Yale Endowment is run by super-investor David Swensen. Swensen has routinely beat other endowments and pension funds in his returns; averaging 16% a year. NPR notes, “Yale pays Swensen $1.3 million a year. That sounds impressive until you realize that, with his track record, if Swensen started his own hedge fund, he could earn $50 million to $100 million a year.”

I’ve seen other articles written about Swensen and have become extremely fascinated with his investment strategy and was pleased to see that he wants to help the general public increase their wealth. He’s written a book, Unconventional Success, which I plan to pick up.

Portfolio ran a rather lengthy and very informative piece on his investment strategy and how he took the Yale endowment and completely changed the course, investing in more private equity, venture capital funds and other vehicles. There’s even a reference to a fan letter from Warren Buffet to Swensen, so you know he’s doing things right.

Lastly, USV pointed me to this Charlie Rose inteview with Swensen.

Tags: david swensen, investing, money

David Swensen and the Yale Endowment was posted on Wednesday, April 22nd, 2009 at 15:54 and is filed in Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.