University of California to double PE allocation by 2020

Expecting a more challenging environment for public markets, the University of California Board of Regents is planning to curb its endowment’s exposure to public equity and fixed income and to increase its target allocations to private equity and real assets by 2020, PERE sister publication Private Equity International reported.

At its March 14 board meeting, the $9.9 billion endowment also merged real assets and real estate to form a consolidated real assets category and approved an increase in its real assets target to 12.5 percent from a combined 10.5 percent percent. The target allocation for real estate was previously set at 7.5 percent, while real assets was 3 percent. University of California also increased its private equity target allocation from 11.5 percent to 22.5 percent. 

This expansion will come at the expense of the endowment’s public equity portfolio, which will be reduced from the current allocation of 42.5 percent in 2017 to a target of 30 percent in 2020, according to meeting materials. Fixed income’s combined target allocation was 12.5 percent. It now falls under a liquidity bucket, which has a 10 percent target.

“Clearly stock markets globally are highly valued, and we’ve continued to see a rally and significant earnings growth,” said Scott Chan, senior managing director for public equity, during the meeting.

“The potential of interest rates rising will increase the discount rate and affect stock values, and finally there’s a number of geopolitical risks.” 

Chief investment officer Jagdeep Singh Bachher noted the single largest way for the endowment to be cost-efficient is by cutting down its exposure to active public equity managers, which could reduce investment costs by as much as 20 basis points. The team plans on focusing more heavily on passive managers instead, while remaining with high performing active managers.

According to Samuel Kunz, the Board of Regents managing director of asset allocation and investment strategy, an internal report found that the Regents’ endowment is not something the University of California schools rely heavily on for their operating budgets, meaning the cashflow required from the Board of Regents is relatively low compared to its endowment peers.

“That’s very important because that allows us to have a very long-term view,” Kunz said at last week’s meeting. “We are able to take advantage of the illiquidity premium and increase our allocation to private equity because of our long-term view, which will be mostly funded by public equity.”

Bachher noted that the shift toward a greater allocation to private equity will be done gradually based on opportunities.

“This isn’t causing an itch for us that we have to be invested this way tomorrow,” he said. “If private equity is fairly or highly valued, and just because we have a target set at ‘X’, and we just fill a box, that’s also not appropriate because we have to live with that for a decade. There are good opportunities from time to time, and when we see those, we will take out of the public markets and put it into private.”

The endowment’s real estate portfolio produced an annual return of 12.3 percent as of December 31, compared with a public equity portfolio performance of 4.4 percent for the same period, according to other 14 March meeting materials. Overall, the endowment generated a 6 percent return. It was not clear whether the returns were net or gross of fees.