FY24: Princeton & Yale Returns Dragged by VC & Lack of Stock Exposure, Harvard boosted by Tech & Hedge Funds

• Low exposure to domestic stocks and higher exposure to VC and growth private equity hurt Ivy endowments for the second year in a row.
• For the first time in over two decades, the average Ivy underperformed the average endowment (and the global 70/30) for the second consecutive fiscal year.
• High beta VC and growth PE portfolios at some elite endowments likely detracted from performance. Is the nadir for private growth investments in the rearview?
• Harvard impressed with another good year but watch risk levels at largest endowment.
• Long-term performance still validates the Yale model’s preference for privates, but recent years show the merit of simple 70/30 stock/bond portfolios, especially when adjusting for risk. Still, we don’t see Ivies changing allocation habits, risk-taking.
• More normalized distributions climate from GPs and less liquidity pressure will be welcomed. Improved deal making environment could alter privates picture going forward (both returns and distributions), but elevated yields could prove a roadblock to activity, sought valuations, while dry powder and competition could impact returns.

Fiscal 2024 reporting season for the venerable elite and Ivy League endowments concluded recently. Perhaps unsurprisingly, the first half of the season was front-loaded with the top-performers. With an 11.5% return, Columbia (Kim Lew) led the class for the second consecutive year, while Brown (Jane Dietze) took salutatorian, trailing by a hair (11.3%).

The curtains were drawn on October 25^th when Yale (CIO Matt Mendelsohn) reported a 5.7% return, just ahead of Princeton, whose 3.9% return published the day prior. Bringing up the rear in the Ivy league tables for the second year in a row, it was the $34.1bn endowment’s final year under legendary leader Andrew “Sparky” Golden, a “Yale Pup” who helmed the Tigers’ ship for nearly three decades since 1995 when it was under $4bn.

How did these top investors who adhere to the ‘Yale model’ do? Overall, the average Ivy again underperformed not only the Global 70/30 benchmark, but also the average endowment (equal weighted) for the second consecutive year. By our count, it was the first time that the average school (and the simple 70/30) has beat the Ivies two years running since fiscal 2003—when our records for all Ivies begin.[1]

Year Is but a Blink

Before we dive in focusing on the recent past, it’s worth sharing a haiku Golden penned in the Princeton FY 2023 report, published in January during fiscal ’24 ahead of turning over the keys to Vincent Tuohey (MIT) for fiscal 2025:

“Short terms involve ups and downs 

Long term is mantra!”

As we wrote in October: For institutions managing assets for perpetuity, we recognize a fixation on annual performance isn’t entirely constructive, especially when compared to peer schools with their own set of unique circumstances and goals.

Indeed, Princeton’s 9.9% return over 20 years is just behind Yale (10.3%) and leader, Ivy+ endowment MIT (10.7%, Seth Alexander). The trouncing of a simple rebalanced portfolio of 70% global stocks and 30% US bonds (6.8%) by these endowments and the 9.2% Ivy average shows the power of incorporating alternatives and private markets, hallmarks of the ‘Yale model’, over the long-term for well-resourced institutions with infinite horizons.

But the elite endowments running the Yale model are rightfully revered for their sophistication, innovation and access to the top investors and opportunities across asset classes and strategies spanning global markets.

While we certainly don’t advocate other investors with different objectives, resources and more limited time horizons follow their lead (in part due to what appears to be a healthy and growing appetite for risk), utilizing returns-based analysis to decompose the likely sources of endowments’ returns from the top-down has become an annual tradition amongst the investment community. Seeking light beyond the extremely limited information disclosed on endowments’ holdings, allocation decisions and performance (one return point per year), we feel this exercise—focusing on a portfolio’s behavior[2] rather than reported asset allocation pie charts where categorization standards vary from school to school—can provide insights into the interplay of risk and return, the role of asset allocation and manager selection skill. Herein lies the power of quantitative techniques.

As such, these annual reviews can be filled with lessons for investors of various stripes—including smaller endowments, multi-asset strategy investment teams, advisors and consultants tasked with selecting TDFs or model portfolios, and investors considering how much active management and alternatives to add as a satellite to a cheap, passive, vanilla stocks + bonds core.

Keeping the longer-term in mind while reviewing the near-term, it is worth noting that this is our tenth fiscal year publishing analysis on the Ivy / elite endowments. You can find a full archive of prior research and analyses on endowments here and in the MPI Transparency Lab, our public repository of historical performance data, exposures and risk on pensions and endowments, including pdf reports on each institution. Thank you for reading and sharing in the journey. If you’d like a custom analysis, or for us to look into an aspect you haven’t seen us tackle, free to reach out!

October Surprise(s)

In the spirt of this election year, was there an ‘October surprise’ so to speak? While $14.8bn Columbia and $7.2bn Brown were anticipated to be at the top of the pack (and indeed ended up there, for different reasons, which we covered here), the largest Ivy endowments of $53.2bn Harvard, $34.1bn Princeton and $41.4bn Yale each provided an element of intrigue. Harvard, the nation’s largest endowment, outperformed our expectations[3] with its 9.6% return to finish in third, behind Brown. Conversely, at the bottom of the League tables, Princeton’s 3.9% and Yale’s 5.7% both came in under our expectations based on quantitative analysis, achieved using Stylus Pro with 20 years of returns through FY’23. Our estimates were based on FY2023 factor exposures and do not account for any potential portfolio adjustments nor asset class reallocations made during FY2024.

Public-Private Equity Dichotomy

Harvard’s outperformance and Princeton and Yale’s lackluster relative returns speak in part to the year’s biggest theme for elite endowments—the dichotomy between private markets, specifically growth private equity and/or venture capital, and public equities, specifically domestic stocks.

Over the past two fiscal years, U.S. equities and especially the Information Technology and Information Services sectors, which house many of the top-performing mega-cap tech companies, including the ‘Magnificent 7’, have seen dazzling performance, while VC has struggled.

VC was the worst-performing asset class in the Yale model over the past two fiscal years (compounded). Rising interest rates disrupted frothy valuations assigned during the ultra-loose monetary policy of the pandemic years and many companies, founders and GPs were slow to accept lower valuations. In stocks, with their intra-day liquidity, this cycle played out in real-time. They saw deep losses in 2022 that allowed such a remarkable rebound over the past two fiscal years.

Most endowments employing the Yale model significantly underweight stocks relative to the average endowment, which returned 10.3% in FY2024 according to Cambridge Associates. The average endowment is smaller, less resourced and more allocated to stocks and bonds than the elite and Ivy League schools. The CIOs running the Yale model prefer to allocate to private markets to harvest the illiquidity premium and potentially lucrative return opportunities not available to the public. That means the vast bulk of Ivy endowment exposure to equity comes from private markets, split between more traditional PE (buyouts) and venture capital (or growth PE).

Private markets Real Estate, also beleaguered by rising rates as well as WFH trends, was the worst performing asset class in FY’24 and detracted from performance for the second consecutive year as RE valuations continued to grind downwards. PE was modestly positive again (distributions, however, were another story).

This performance asymmetry between PE and VC—of directionally opposite returns—is rare. We see only 4 prior instances over the past 20 fiscal years. It’s also the only consecutive instance we see in the Cambridge Associates index history of VC declining and PE gaining over fiscal years, though the spread in fiscal ’24 was less dramatic (11.1% in FY’24 to 16.4% in FY’23).

Developed and Emerging Markets stocks performed similarly, providing about half the return of U.S. stocks (S&P 500). Bonds broke their two-year streak of negative returns, including fiscal ‘22’s painful -10% loss.

Returning nearly 10% in fiscal ’24 after a 5% up year in ‘23, Hedge Funds provided a boon for endowments with overweight exposure to the strategies, benefiting from their beta to global stock markets and certain managers’ positioning towards ebullient U.S. tech mega-caps.

TLDR: low exposure to domestic stocks and higher exposure to venture capital or growth oriented private equity hurt badly for the second year in a row.

Yale and Princeton

That was the case for both Yale and Princeton, whose portfolios behave with very little exposure to the S&P 500. Where the two seem to differ is on IT sector exposure; Yale’s slightly above Ivy average IT exposure, close to 5% of the portfolio, suggests a helpful offset from its near-Ivy average VC exposure and well-above average RE exposure.

Besides some emerging markets, Princeton’s portfolio behaves as if it has virtually no equity exposure—whether domestic large-caps, IT or developed markets—while it models to be significantly exposed to VC and PE at levels well more than Ivy averages. Hedge fund exposure likely aided the portfolio to its 3.9% return.

Interestingly, in Princeton’s FY ’23 report Golden discusses their defensive posturing and an equity market hedge that commenced in FY’22 for “mid-term positioning” which seems to have cost them dearly again in FY2024: “In FY2022, PRINCO moved the Endowment to a much more defensive positioning, which was motivated by very high US equity market valuation levels coupled with the Endowment’s higher than typical Private Equity exposure. We have utilized a large US market hedge position that includes a significant options component to implement the Endowment’s mid-term positioning. The put options in the hedge structure enable us to maintain downside protection while significantly reducing liquidity risk.”

Harvard’s Winning Streak: Tech & Manager Selection

Fiscal ’24 marked the third year in a row that Harvard beat the Ivy average. From an absolute return perspective, it’s 9.6% third place performance is a win for the endowment and for Narvekar’s legacy of reconfiguring HMC’s behemoth portfolio over his 8-year tenure. Over the past three fiscal years, Harvard’s 3.5% return is second only to Cornell’s 3.6%.

How did they do it? Modeling the Harvard endowment in MPI Stylus Pro shows estimated increases over a handful of years, since Narv’s tenure, to IT stocks and VC, the best and worst performing asset classes of the past two years, respectively. In fact, amongst the elite endowments in the MPI Transparency Lab only Brown appears to have higher IT sector exposure. As for VC, Harvard shows slightly higher exposure than the Ivy average in recent years, a significant increase since before Narv took the helm, which gels with his fiscal ’23 letter where he stated that HMC “significantly added to tech venture.” Additionally, Harvard’s recent and longer-term behavior doesn’t suggest meaningful buyouts or traditional PE exposure.

While Harvard’s stated public equity portfolio is not large (14%), the endowment’s behavior through a returns-based lens suggests stock exposure is increasingly weighting towards the IT sector rather than broad equity. Overweighting IT, Information Services and select members of the Mag 7 relative to the broad S&P 500 would be a very positive driver of any manager’s returns in FY 2024. The S&P 500’s IT sector returned 41.8% in FY 2024—following a 40% run in FY 2023.

This brings us to hedge funds, a topic Narvekar hits on in his fiscal ’24 letter. HMC reports adding to their allocation in ’24 to result in 32% of the portfolio. That alone would have been savvy from an asset allocation perspective[4]. But additionally, Narv notes the HF portfolio’s outperformance of its benchmark and strong manager selection. Though most any allocator would welcome seeing the performance at the asset class level of public equities and HFs to understand the extent of outperformance, we do note manager selection and outperformance of internal benchmarks is a theme hit on in his fiscal ’23 letter as well: “HMC’s manager selection alpha is one of our proudest achievements. Over the course of the last six fiscal years, the alpha generated by HMC’s manager selection has been very strong, greater than we would have anticipated. Although we are confident that HMC will continue to do very well, it is hard to imagine that the next six years of alpha production can be as strong as the previous six years.” From our Lab analysis of Harvard, it’s possible that the “manager selection alpha” could be based in a significant overweight of US tech stocks across all equity-related assets, second only to Brown.

Though Narvekar reports in his ’24 letter that HMC’s hedge fund portfolio has less equity exposure than broad hedge fund indices, we suspect there was likely some overweighting of the Mag7 and momentum plays within a portion of managers they allocate to—as well as other savvy directional bets to move their portfolio above the roughly 10% return the broad hedge fund universe turned in for the year through June.

Size and Motion

A bigger topic might be size. To meaningfully benefit from manager selection across such a massive portfolio is noteworthy and laudable. And to do so consistently is another thing. If Harvard’s equity and HF managers can continue besting benchmarks like this, their standing in the League tables over 5yrs could soon exceed the Ivy average, which would be welcomed by the administration, students and alumni given the “ever-increasing reliance” on the endowment for funding the university[5] and a desire to move beyond the endowment’s legacy issues, turnover and longer-term underperformance. Harvard is second to last amongst Ivies over 10 and 20 years, well underperforming the Ivy average.

From an asset allocation perspective, as far as the composition of the portfolio, we estimate that Harvard’s portfolio is one of the most dynamic in the group along with Columbia and MIT. Again, such estimated exposure turnover is especially notable because of their size, being the largest endowment. This dynamism is likely a product of considerable turnover in management—Jane Mendillo 2008-2014, Stephen Blyth 2015-2016, Narv Narvekar 2016-present—and resultant portfolio reviews and strategy shifts.

Considering Risk

The estimated increase in Harvard’s exposure to public Tech stocks, whether direct, via equity fund managers or hedge funds, has certainly been a boon to the portfolio and university recently. This boost was especially beneficial at a time when alumni donations have been trimmed due to a fraught climate on campus, distributions from PE portfolios have been historically arid, and the school’s uncalled capital commitments are higher than Ivy average (due to the estimated younger average vintage of its VC/PE portfolio). While Harvard denies their bond issuance within FY ’24 had anything to do with liquidity, the estimated exposure to stocks and the endowment’s handsome returns relative to peers surely helped the overall financial situation at the university.

But that heightened exposure, as well as the increase in VC or more growth-oriented PE, brings risk into focus. It’s a topic clearly on Narv’s mind—“risk” is mentioned 13 times in his recent letter, down from 15 in FY’23—and for good reason considering Harvard’s past.

Derisking became central to Harvard’s strategy during Jane Mendillo’s tenure following her inheriting HMC’s portfolio from Mohamed El-Erian on the eve of the GFC. The credit crisis and liquidity crunch hammered the endowment, falling -27.3% in FY 2009 and trailing all Ivy League peers. Our MPI Stylus Pro models show fixed income and cash exposure grew after the crisis, as did the hedge fund portfolio.

Harvard has shown lower risk among elite endowments when measured over a decade, putting it close to risk-aware Columbia (which Narv helmed before getting the job at HMC). And though the portfolio risk level may indeed be “still lower than that of many private university peers” as Narv notes in the past two fiscal years’ letters, Harvard has been revving up risk in recent years.

After starting a Risk Tolerance Group in 2018 to study risk levels and appetite, Harvard approved a proposal from the Finance Committee in 2021. Narv reports that “following thoughtful, rigorous analysis, a moderate increase in portfolio risk was approved”.

While exposure to private equity (of the growth or VC variety) and IT stocks has risen, the level of bonds, with their low risk and higher liquidity, looks to have decreased by almost half from about 20% earlier in Narv’s tenure. Those changes combine to make Harvard look closer to Brown. Brown, it should be noted, the second most volatile endowment (behind MIT) over the 10yr window[6].

Will Harvard continue to have risk similar to diversification leader Columbia or will it trend towards Brown and MIT?

We’ll likely never know from endowment annual reports or CIOs’ letters their true risk. The exact depth of a peak to trough drawdown will remain a mystery. Using annual returns as we did above is not very accurate as we have one number per annum and that’s it. And so, the Transparency Lab—where we model each endowments’ exposures dynamically in MPI Stylus Pro—is designed to close this gap.

Fashionably Late?

Time will reveal all, but expectations for more normalized rates might lead some to suggest Harvard was a little late to increase VC. Brown shows to have dialed up risk with increased exposure to VC and IT over five years ago. That resulted in a great ride. Wind in the sails from historically low interest rates and other pandemic stimulus measures propelled a great run for VC. Brown reported an 87% return for the school’s PE portfolio in FY’21 (including 114.1% from VC vs 86.3% for Cambridge Associates VC Index), which pushed the endowment to a 51.5% return. Those banner returns helped propel the Providence endowment to the highest spot in the 10-yr League tables (10.8%, over MIT’s 10.5%).

The result of Harvard’s forays deeper into private markets growth exposure is going to be judged in 5 years+, given VC and growth PE takes time to monetize from paper to actual distributions.

One thing is for sure though, LPs are hoping those distributions show up and the dearth of deals plaguing the VC ecosystem reverse. Based on Pitchbook data, the WSJ reports a record gap between GP contributions to portfolio companies and distributions paid back to investors in VC funds. The glut of capital and growth of the VC industry as more institutions have allocated to private growth over the past decade is leading to changes in companies’ natural evolution towards exits. While the number of publicly traded stocks (and some would say their quality) has steadily decreased, there are now more than 1,400 unicorns. These startups valued at over $1bn are able to remain private thanks to VC continuing to finance them through new funds/capital, a growing VC secondaries market and even continuation vehicles.

Coatue Management co-founder Thomas Laffont remarked, “we are bleeding cash as an industry.”

For now, Narv would seem to think Harvard is on course, writing: “The work HMC has undertaken to reposition the endowment for long-term success is clearly visible and the risk-adjusted returns to date show we are on the right track.”

High Beta VC and Growth PE Dragged Average Ivy Returns

Surprises to the downside from Yale and Princeton, along with UPenn (7.1%) pulled down the average from our estimated range of 9% to 10.5%, landing at 8.3%. There was notable clustering around that average, with MIT, Cornell, Dartmouth and Stanford reporting in the 8% to 9% range.

What could’ve contributed to this lower average return? We think it has to do with the aggressive, high-growth and high-risk venture orientation of Ivy+ endowments’ private investments, segments that went to the moon in 2021 and have been earthbound since.

The share of VC exposure relative to PE—deduced from analysis of annual endowment returns in MPI Stylus Pro—increased dramatically over the past decade as the chart above shows (Harvard, Brown, Dartmouth and MIT in particular with Columbia being a notable exception). For the few schools that report how their PE has performed, and the fewer still that actually break out VC (growth) from PE (buyouts), like Brown, there is a noteworthy outperformance in positive periods, like 2021. This leads us to believe certain endowments’ private equity portfolios underperformed the broad Cambridge Associates PE and VC Indexes in FY‘24.

Private equity benchmarks are not very representative of the asset class returns because of the much flatter distribution of private fund returns in any given year as opposed to traditional products with more of a pointed bell shaped curves observed with, say, large-cap equity funds.

Indeed, the PE universes, unlike equity mutual funds or even hedge funds, have annual interquartile range of at least 25% on any given year.[7]

With the limited information available into the GPs and funds that Ivies invest with, we’ve noted a posturing towards high-risk, high-reward from elite endowments.

Princeton’s fiscal ’23 report (figure 3, page 36) shows their combined PE and VC investments were down -11% vs the -5.3% for the custom Cambridge Associates PE Index they benchmark against. We’d note that for FY 2023, the Cambridge Associates PE Index was up 6.2% and the Cambridge Associates VC Index was down -10.2%. Princeton’s underperformance across their combined PE and VC in ’23 and long-term outperformance over 10-yrs suggests a risky composition. High risk meant famously high reward in fiscal ’21. More recently, it has meant the opposite.

Any delay in markdowns at certain VC funds as the Fed defied expectations and rates remained plateaued through FY’24, could’ve resulted in pain in this recent fiscal year, which looks to be the case for some elite endowments, especially Princeton, Yale and Penn.

While there are many possible explanations for a gap in returns-based estimations vs actual allocations to a given asset class, high beta VC and growth PE could explain a tendency for quantitative analysis to model higher exposure to private equity than some schools report—akin to “beta-adjusted exposures” in traders’ jargon.[8]

Longer-term view / return to Haiku

The data table in the endowments section of the MPI Transparency Lab includes annualized multi-year returns over 3-, 5-, 10- and 20-yr windows updated through FY’24.

It is interesting to see how the elite endowments’ rankings change over shorter- and longer windows. The large schools leaning the most into the Yale model—MIT, Yale and Princeton—have been stung in more recent windows, while over the longer-term (10- and 20-yr) horizon, their outperformance of the average elite or Ivy is still perceptible.

Over the recent 3-yr, which lops off 2021, the Yale model (proxied by the Ivy average) underperforms a simple 70/30 moderately aggressive portfolio of global stocks and domestic bonds. Over 10yrs, however, the outperformance of the Yale model by the Ivy Average of a global 70/30 portfolio is notable. And that pattern certainly holds over 20yrs.

Endowments with the estimated largest exposure to private markets have outperformed over 10yrs. Brown’s lead over the recent decade is worth reiterating, and Princeton, having a rough go over the recent 3-yr period, is above average over the past decade and trailing only MIT and Yale over the past two decades.

Into the Sunset, and Fiscal 2025

The next fiscal year is approaching the halfway point and we’ve seen a historic election, a Fed changing direction, and an economy, endlessly questioned, that has seemingly still not landed. Stock (and crypto) investors are having a great time and Wall Street is ecstatic that the deal pipeline is as lively as it has been in years.

We’re looking forward to seeing some CIO/CEO commentary emerge with endowments’ annual reports over the coming months. Will any insight into the path of rates, inflation and the nature of the recent rally emerge from these leading allocators?

How much will risks vs opportunities be discussed amidst an impressive period for performance in most asset classes? Are managers dropping hints they’re looking to hedge funds after considering market risks—and also tiring of the liquidity challenges from a lack of distributions and poor returns in PE & VC?

We’ll be looking to see what Princeton’s new leader says about the impact and nature of the endowment’s equity market hedge in another excellent fiscal year for stocks.

Will CIOs reflect on the return and valuation gap between US and International assets, and provide any forward outlooks (esp. with a second Trump administration that has touted tariffs)?

Could the climate on divestments be changing, too, after campus and national culture wars?

What about diversifiers, even digital ones…?

What, if anything, will be said about FY’24 private market valuations, distributions and returns? Will CIOs offer insight into how the deal climate is changing so far in fiscal ’25, both for IPOs and secondaries across private equity, VC and real estate?

Importantly, given the crowding into ‘Yale model’ asset classes and asset managers’ desires to bring these private markets strategies further downstream into the retail wealth management channel, we wonder if managers are worried about competition and return outlooks for privates.

With domestic stocks’ continued smart performance in fiscal ‘25, could the 70/30 outperform the elite endowments yet again?

But mostly, well, we’re not holding our breath until fiscal 2025 returns are in for us to analyze.

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[1] The only time prior to fiscal 2023 that the average endowment—which is smaller, less resourced and simpler, maintaining allocations much closer to a 70/30 than the Ivies which have long leaned toward privates and alternatives—beat the average Ivy was during FY 2009, which captured the bottom of the global financial crisis and exposed the riskiness of the Yale model. The average endowment lost less (-18.7%) than the average Ivy (-22.3%) and then narrowly underperformed the Ivy average in FY 2010 as markets rebounded (11.9% to 12.1%).

[2] Endowment exposure estimates exhibited herein were obtained through a returns-based analysis using MPI Stylus Pro and, beyond any public information, MPI does not claim to know or insinuate what the actual strategy, positions or holdings of the funds are, nor are we commenting on the quality or merits of the strategies. Deviations between our analysis and the actual holdings and/or management decisions made by funds are expected and inherent in any quantitative analysis. MPI makes no warranties or guarantees as to the accuracy of this statistical analysis, nor does it take any responsibility for investment decisions made by any parties based on this analysis. For further information and reports on institutions covered within, see the MPI Transparency Lab.

[3] Projected returns are based on FY2023 factor exposures and do not account for any potential portfolio adjustments nor asset class reallocations made during FY2024. Projected returns and related statistics are based on exposure estimates obtained through a returns-based analysis using MPI Stylus Pro and, beyond any public information, MPI does not claim to know or insinuate what the actual strategy, positions or holdings of the funds are, nor are we commenting on the quality or merits of the strategies. Deviations between our analysis and the actual holdings and/or management decisions made by funds are expected and inherent in any quantitative analysis. MPI makes no warranties or guarantees as to the accuracy of this statistical analysis, nor does it take any responsibility for investment decisions made by any parties based on this analysis. For further information and reports on institutions covered within, see the MPI Transparency Lab.

[4] As would the reported reduction in real estate. Interestingly, returns-based analysis still shows significant RE exposure. This could potentially be due to the levered nature of RE or idiosyncratic aspects of the portfolio’s holdings differing from the CA RE Index.

[5] Narv notes, “Twenty years ago, Harvard’s endowment distributions accounted for 21% of the University’s budget. Ten years later, it had grown to 31%. Now, it is approaching 40%.”

[6] The rolling 10-year standard deviation chart is using simply annual reported returns without any adjustment for serial correlations since annual aggregation significantly decreases serial correlation. The drop in estimated volatility numbers in FY2019 is related to the fact that the estimation window passes the GFC and the subsequent increase is related to the spike in endowment returns in FY2021 propelled by the PE/VC performance.

[7] Interquartile range, a measure of the breadth of distribution, is the spread of the middle 50% of results around the median (the two middle quartiles). So, if we remove the top and bottom 25% of results the returns for the PE funds that remain could differ by 25% on any given year.

[8] E.g., our model estimates Brown’s VC exposure at 35.6% and PE exposure to be 16.3% of the portfolio (52% total, vs financial reports stating about 23% VC and 17% PE, respectively for a total of 40% in private markets equity). Higher estimated exposures vs. reported in such a case could be explained by the higher risk of the endowment’s PE/VC portfolio vs. CA index.