Harvard University is cutting around half of the 230 investment professionals that manage its massive $35.7 billion endowment, according to a memo sent out earlier today by recently-hired endowment CEO N.P. Narvekar.
In short, Narvekar blames the endowment's flagging investment performance on its traditional "hybrid" strategy, through which it utilizes both in-house and outside managers. Going forward, most of the emphasis will be on outsiders, although some of those could include current in-house teams that spin out into independent firms (including both its hedge fund and direct real estate teams). He also announced several new senior hires, including chief investment officer iock Slocum to oversee the new "generalist" structure.
Here's the memo, which was obtained earlier today by Axios:
