Lehigh endowment returns -2.7% for fiscal year

Lehigh University's $2 billion endowment returned a net -2.7% for the fiscal year ended June 30.

The endowment's return was above the policy benchmark return of -6.8% for the period, according to an investment performance report on the Bethlehem, Pa.-based university's website.

For the three, five and 10 years ended June 30, the endowment returned an annualized net 9.7%, 9.3% and 8.3%, respectively, compared with their respective benchmark returns of 8.2%, 8.1% and 8.8%. Returns by asset class were not provided.

The endowment returned a net 34.5% for the fiscal year ended June 30, 2021.

For the most recent fiscal year, the negative return reflected a challenging market environment, primarily in public equities and fixed income. For the year ended June 30, the Russell 3000 index and Bloomberg U.S. Aggregate Bond index returned -13.9% and -10.3%, respectively, in sharp contrast to returns of 44.2% and 4.6% for the year ended June 30, 2021.

However, Lehigh's endowment return did exceed the median return of -4.1% among the 46 university endowments whose returns for the fiscal year ended June 30 have been tracked by Pensions & Investments as of Wednesday. The endowment likely benefited from its relatively low target allocation to public equities of 37%.

The endowment's total target allocation is 37% public equities, 30% private equity, 20% absolute return, 8% cash/U.S. Treasuries and 5% real estate.