US college endowments are seeking to sell stakes in ageing private equity funds to free up cash for new investments, at a time when the university sector is under pressure from federal funding cuts.
At least four US universities — including Harvard and Yale — have either recently completed or are actively exploring discounted secondary market sales of private equity stakes held by their endowment funds to boost their ability to meet capital calls, according to public disclosures and interviews conducted by the Financial Times.
Harvard is a regular user of secondary markets and in recent years has used the market to offload stakes in older funds as discounts narrowed.