The investment return would rank among the best of American educational endowments.
The National Association of College and University Business Officers (NACUBO) has published its 2024 study of American educational endowments. In total 599 endowments reported an average 8.3 percent annual return in 2019-2024.
The University of Helsinki's endowment's corresponding annual return in US Dollars was 10.1 percent and would reach the top decile in the study. Fixed income investments' currency risk hedges weighted on the return in US Dollars: The annual return was 11.4 percent in Euros.
"The University of Helsinki competes with the world's best universities. It is important to us that also our endowment is internationally competitive", rector Sari Lindblom states.
Over 90 percent of the University of Helsinki's endowment's investments are valued daily on financial exchanges, whereby uncertainty about their true value is limited, compared for instance with unlisted investments.
"Managing liquidity and valuation risks is an important part of our asset and liability management. For this reason, we have limited our illiquid investments' weight to ten percent of our endowment's investments", Chief Financial Officer Marjo Berglund continues.
