Cornell’s Endowment Gains 2% in 1H 2009
Two new articles in the Cornell Daily Sun just came out dealing with the 2009 performance of the Cornell University Endowment:
Joanne DeStefano, vice president for finance and CFO of the University, is quoted: “We earned 2 percent on our endowment from January through June 2009.” The endowment suffered a 27% loss in the second half of 2008, as global markets crashed and the US entered a recession. Unfortunately, the Cornell endowment website has not yet published its June quartly report.
The S&P500 index is +2% for the January to June period, which makes Cornell’s 2% performance an interesting match. The S&P500 is up another 16% from July through the present: I will be interested to see how Cornell’s endowment performs in the second half.
The University has set very low expectations for future growth of the endowment:
“The ultimate goal of the endowment is to generate sufficient returns to grow the real value of the endowment while meeting annual operating budget pay-out with an annual five percent pay-out growth,” DeStefano said. “This translates to a minimum return target of CPI plus 5 percent.”
At a 5% rate (not including any pay-outs), it will take Cornell at least 7 years before the endowment is back to the level-water line. However, if Cornell can earn 14% a year, it might only take them 5 years.
Ithaca in Recession: Shops closed at Ithaca Mall
I was just at the Ithaca Mall this weekend buying school supplies, and I noticed that in the span of a short year, almost a dozen shops had been shuttered, including famed Abercrombie and Fitch. Ithaca (formerly Pyramid) Mall appears to be downsizing at a faster rate than the already-tanking US economy. It’s hard for me to estimate how much has changed in the more than a year since I was last there, but I got an impression of sadness and decay:
A website Dead Malls has an entry (from 2004) for Pyramid Mall:
IN the late 90’s much change took place inside the walls of Pyramid Mall, due, for the most part, to the changing retail scene nationally, as well as regionally. All three of the original anchors of the mall closed, due to Chapter 11 (Ames, which bought out Hills, and Montgomery Ward), or mismanagement of the company (JC Penney). However, due to the mall’s location, the needs of big box stores to expand into the smaller markets, and the inability of developers in the Ithaca area to get any large scale power centers built, Pyramid was able to benefit.
