Insight

Johns Hopkins endowment shopped a PE portfolio in ’18

-
private equity, Baltimore Fire & Police
The John Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore, on Nov. 4, 2015. Reuters/Carlos Barria
  • Why this is important: Move reflected trend of traditional LP secondary sales
  • PE, VC portfolio: $636 mln as of 2017
  • Johns Hopkins endowment: $6 bln last year
  • Contact Johns Hopkins: +1 410-516-8000

Johns Hopkins’s endowment fund was shopping a portfolio of private equity fund stakes after a new chief investment officer took over the program, three sources told Buyouts.

The portfolio, valued at up to $500 million, was on the market last year, sources said. It’s not clear whether the portfolio traded or the endowment pulled it off the market.

The university declined comment.

Johns Hopkins hired a new CIO, John Perlioni, in 2017. Perlioni spent 10 years as CIO at Pritzker Group Asset Management.

Sources said the secondary sale was related to the new CIO, but why the endowment chose to sell is not exactly clear.

Johns Hopkins’s endowment, valued around $6 billion as of last year, had about $636 million of PE and venture capital, according to the endowment’s 2017 annual report.

The PE total included about $388.5 million in unfunded commitment, the report said.

The private equity and venture category was valued at about $600 million in 2016, the report said.

The sale was one of numerous traditional LP portfolio sales on the secondary market last year.

Several public pensions traded large portfolios on the market, helping drive total secondary market volume above $70 billion, according to surveys from intermediaries Setter Capital and Evercore.

Action Item: Check out Johns Hopkins’s annual report here: https://releases.jhu.edu/tag/endowment/