UVIMCO’s primary objective is to generate inflation-adjusted, long-term returns in excess of the University’s spending rate, thereby achieving our goal of generating a steady source of income to support UVA’s mission.

UVIMCO’s investment performance and strategy start with successful asset allocation and alignment with asset owners. UVIMCO’s investment policy includes a policy portfolio allocation, which our Board of Directors establishes based on the University’s risk tolerance and expected future capital requirements. The Board carefully considers capital market risk and return estimates to ensure that the policy portfolio is appropriately designed to achieve the objectives of the Long Term Pool. The policy portfolio serves as an indicator of how the endowment would fare under passive management.

UVIMCO has a long history of partnering with exceptional investment managers, who generate superior returns for the University.  Our returns relative to the policy portfolio demonstrate the added value of active management through our internal investment team and external investment managers.

Our managers invest in Public Equity, Long/Short Equity, Private Equity, Real Assets, Absolute Return, Credit, and Fixed Income. Graph 4 displays the trends in the asset allocation of the Long Term Pool over the past decade, with shifts in recent years primarily due to relative performance.

Fiscal year 2024 was a stellar year for global equities, with the MSCI ACWI gaining almost 20% despite sticky inflation and high interest rates for most of the year. Both global and domestic public equity markets (S&P 500 Index: +24.6%) were propelled by a sustained rally of the “Magnificent 7” mega-cap technology companies (Bloomberg Magnificent 7: +52.1%), which heavily benefited from investor excitement around artificial intelligence. Globally, developed markets (MSCI World: +20.8%) surpassed emerging markets (MSCI Emerging Markets: +13.0%) by a wide margin. Within emerging markets, India was one of the largest positive contributors (MSCI India: +34.9%), while foreign investors remained disenchanted with Chinese equities (MSCI China: –1.4%). By the end of the fiscal year, the 10-year U.S. Treasury yield rose to 4.4% as Treasuries sold off in response to political uncertainties and increased issuance.

Against this market backdrop, the Long Term Pool returned 7.5% and earned $1 billion in returns for our investors during the fiscal year. Public Equity (+10.5%) and Long/Short Equity (+7.4%) trailed the MSCI ACWI (+19.9%) by a large margin, in part due to our longstanding biases to small-caps and emerging markets, as well as underexposure to the select mega-cap companies that led the market rallies. Private strategies collectively generated 4.3%, while Real Assets (+10.8%) and our diversifying strategies (+6.5%) provided important diversification and meaningful returns for the Long Term Pool.

The Long Term Pool generally underperforms the policy benchmark during times of exceptional market performance. The primary factor impacting the Long Term Pool's fiscal year performance is its ~45% allocation to private investments, which drives significant basis risk versus the all-liquid passive benchmark. Importantly, the success or failure of private investments can only be properly evaluated over long time periods that capture complete market cycles, provide ample opportunity for innovation to take hold, and enable business improvements to bear fruit. While past performance is no guarantee of future success, relatively consistent commitments to private investments over the past several decades have served the University quite well.

Historically, we have been well paid for assuming market, manager, and liquidity risks that differ from that of the policy portfolio. Our longer-term performance (Table 1) continues to be excellent compared to both the policy benchmark and the required return. Over the last ten and twenty years, the Long Term Pool has generated annualized returns of 8.7% and 9.7%, exceeding the policy portfolio returns by 1.4% and 2.3% per year, respectively. The ten- and twenty-year annualized returns also exceed the 8.0% return required to preserve the purchasing power of the endowment over time.

According to Wilshire Trust Universe Comparison Service (TUCS) data, UVIMCO consistently outperforms its institutional peers in addition to securing long-term returns above the policy benchmark and required return. Over the past twenty years, UVIMCO’s annualized return of 9.7% has well exceeded the 7.3% garnered by median peers (Graph 5).

In fiscal year 2025, UVIMCO remains focused on generating long-term, risk-adjusted returns for the University and associated organizations in perpetuity.

UVIMCO utilizes an Investor Responsibility Framework, which guides our responsible investing approach and rests on the assumption that proactive management of environmental, social, and governance (ESG) factors enhances our ability to deliver strong, risk-adjusted returns for the University.

Our 2024 Investor Responsibility Report outlines the continued progress made toward our investor responsibility goals. Over the past year, we strengthened our engagement with external managers on material ESG risks and opportunities, deepened our approach to climate risk, and continued investing in energy transition opportunities. To learn more about UVIMCO’s responsible investing efforts, visit our “Responsibility” page.

UVIMCO Board of Directors

UVIMCO’s Board of Directors is comprised of a diverse and distinguished group of industry leaders who provide essential guidance on UVIMCO’s investment strategy to ensure the continued success of the University of Virginia’s mission.

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UVIMCO Team

UVIMCO’s team is comprised of investment and operational professionals who are passionate about the University and dedicated to achieving excellence in investment management. We value integrity, collaboration, excellence, intellectual honesty, and diversity of thought. We strive to be included in the top quartile of university endowments by generating superior investment returns, maintaining an exceptional reputation, and serving as a true partner to the University. Our leadership team members bring strong investment acumen, diverse skill sets, deep knowledge of the industry, and enthusiasm to serve the University every day. 

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