Harvard University's endowment, the largest of any university, lost $2.3 billion this year, making it the first negative year for the school since 2016. This 1.8 percent loss on endowment investments comes just after a record high year in 2021 when Harvard saw 33.6 percent returns, Forbes reports.
The endowment comes from over 14,000 individual funds that are invested as a single entity and managed by an investment firm called the Harvard Management Company (HMC), which is owned by the university, CNN Business explains. The loss is attributed to the "poor performance of global equity markets" as well as Harvard's commitments to climate goals, according to HMC CEO N.P. "Narv" Narvekar. The university's climate goals impacted the endowment because many of the investors were invested in the "conventional" energy sectors like fossil fuels, CNN Business continues.
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