Bloomberg – The University of Pennsylvania, the Ivy League school founded by Benjamin Franklin, outperformed its wealthiest peers by avoiding many hard-to-sell assets such as real estate, former committee Chairman Howard Marks said.
Penn held less in private equity and property, more in stocks and owned a “defensive” mix of hedge funds, as well as “substantial” cash and short-term U.S. treasuries, Marks wrote in an Oct. 20 memo to trustees, obtained by Bloomberg News. The Philadelphia school’s investments fell 16 percent in the year ended June 2009, versus the 27 percent and 25 percent declines of Harvard and Yale, the two richest U.S. universities.
