Financial Overview
The UNC Foundation manages the endowments it holds as separate accounts while it invests funds as part of its pooled investment portfolio. Accordingly, investment related activity is allocated to each fund on a quarterly basis and distributions to support the University according to donor directives, become available at the beginning of each fiscal year.
With investment objectives of achieving long-term earnings that provide support to the University while still allowing endowments to grow, the UNC Foundation maintains a diversified asset allocation that respects inherent risks within the financial markets. Quarterly, the Foundation’s Investment Committee analyzes investment results in detail utilizing relevant benchmarks and comparisons to similar portfolios to evaluate performance.
The Foundation takes a long-term approach to investment management, however annual returns will vary from year to year. The investment environment for the year ending June 30, 2022, was particularly challenging as it was an unusual year as traditional investment asset classes, including stocks, and bonds, simultaneously saw significant declines. The S&P 500 index (large U.S. public companies) lost 10.6% for the year while the Bloomberg US Aggregate Bond index declined 10.3%. Domestic small cap equities, developed international, and emerging market overall stock indices showed even significantly steeper losses. The UNC Foundation Pooled Investment Portfolio declined 7.1% for the year, which compared favorably to its policy benchmark which indicated a loss of 9.4%. In contrast, the Portfolio returned 30.1% for the previous year ending June 30, 2021.
