The University of Pennsylvania endowment returned 12.2% in the fiscal year ending June 30, outperforming a 9.2% composite benchmark, according to information on the institution’s website. Assets managed by the endowment rose $2.5 billion to $24.8 billion—of which, $19.5 billion represented assets that support the university, while the remaining $5.35 billion represented assets that support the UPenn Health System.
The strong, double-digit return shows promise for Ivy League university endowments’ investment performance, which in recent fiscal years have been muted, as weaker returns from alternative asset classes such as private equity and venture capital had resulted in single-digit or negative returns since fiscal 2022 for many peer institutions.
Penn is the first of its Ivy League peers to report its fiscal year 2025 returns—pushing into the double digits like several other endowment and foundations as well as public pension funds.
The strong performance could also point to a rebound in private equity returns. For fiscal 2025, the California Public Employees’ Retirement System reported that its private equity portfolio returned 14.3%. The California State Teachers’ Retirement System reported a 9.7% private equity return for the fiscal year.
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Over the past three, five, 10 and 20 years, the Penn endowment returned an annualized 6.8%, 11.4%, 9.3% and 8.6%, respectively. Penn’s endowment returned 7.1% in fiscal 2024, 1.3% in fiscal year 2023 and 0% in 2022.
Penn had the third lowest investment performance among its peers in the 2024 fiscal year, with a 7.2% return, outperforming Yale (5.7%) and Princeton (3.9%), while underperforming Columbia (11.5%), Brown (11.3%), Harvard (9.6%), Cornell (8.7%), and Dartmouth (8.4%).
The Penn endowment provided $1.1 billion in budgetary support to the university in the fiscal year, up $41 million from the prior year, according to university information.
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Tags: Endowments, Ivy League, University of Pennsylvania
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