Endowments and foundations investment management

With a truly long-term investment horizon and limited liquidity needs, endowments and foundations can take advantage of their unique position in the investment arena. They balance their investment objectives and risk appetite between a desire to generate cash flow for grants, grow their investment portfolio and a responsibility of preserving their capital to enable them to deliver on their mission over the longer term.

Generating a regular income or cash flow is essential for endowments and foundations in order to be able to pay grants to the projects they finance without interruption. Therefore, the expected return and risk of the investment portfolio should be well calibrated to ensure stability and continuity. The return objective will mostly be expressed as a certain percentage above inflation as the capital needs to be at least preserved in real terms to ensure long term delivery to the mission of the organisation. 

Given their long-term nature and less regulated environment, endowments and foundations have much more freedom in the way they invest compared to other asset owners. They can accept to invest larger portions in illiquid assets, private markets and new types or niche asset classes in order to capture risk premia not always accessible to other investors. 

We assist boards, investment committees, Chief Investment Officers and in-house investment teams with a variety of services, from clarifying objectives and investment beliefs, to defining asset allocation and strategy, and selecting the right managers and monitoring them.

By working in partnership with our clients, we deliver a clear, long-term, bespoke and integrated investment service that allows you to make decisions in an informed and timely manner.

Our dedicated endowments and foundations investment team has a long track record in advising endowment and foundations with their investment arrangements in the UK, Europe and the Middle East