Jane Mendillo spent her first year as Harvard University's endowment chief contending with the worst financial crisis in generations. Now she is repositioning the U.S.'s largest endowment in light of hard lessons learned.
Key to her strategy: selling off some holdings in hedge funds, private-equity firms and other money managers to bring more money under the purview of her internal investing staff, which she recently began expanding.
"We are looking to have a greater portion of our assets managed internally over the next few years," Ms. Mendillo, 50 years old, says. "That will allow us to be more nimble, have ...
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Monday, September 28, 2009
Tuesday, September 15, 2009
Could selling my endowment encourage greener motoring?
Rising petrol and diesel prices could have led many Britons to consider buying a more fuel-efficient car to combat the rising cost of motoring and be kinder to the environment. However not everyone can afford to go greener.
According to the latest poll from TheGreenCarWebsite.co.uk, the cost associated with going green is the biggest obstacle preventing the sale of more environmentally-friendly cars.
Website visitors were asked “What would be your main reason not to choose one of the greenest petrol or diesel cars available as your next car?” and 33 per cent of visitors said that the cost of green vehicles compared to regular car models was the biggest obstacle to selecting a green model.
Despite Alistair Darling’s ‘scrappage scheme’, which provides motorists with a £2,000 discount on new vehicles when they trade in cars that are over ten years old, some families are wary of slipping into debt to buy a newer, greener car.
However, Chris Radford, chief executive officer of aap, the UK's biggest buyer of endowment policies, said some of its customers had sold their underachieving endowments in order to cover the cost of greener motoring.
Some of the most popular ‘green car’ models - the ones with the lowest CO2 emission ratings - cost substantially more than the basic entry level models. In fact, the research found that it could cost as much as £4,760 more to buy the environmentally-friendly model compared to the basic model.
However over the long term, going green could help save money as well as help save the planet as they can be cheaper to run, less expensive to tax and in some areas of the country, cheaper to park.
But help may be at hand for Britons worried about being able to afford a new car. People who have already considered surrendering their unwanted endowment policies to raise the cash to purchase a greener car may not realise that selling their underperforming endowments is another route available, according to Mr Radford, from aap.
He added that should aap decide to make an offer to buy an endowment, it will always pay more than the surrender value offered by the insurance company.
According to the latest poll from TheGreenCarWebsite.co.uk, the cost associated with going green is the biggest obstacle preventing the sale of more environmentally-friendly cars.
Website visitors were asked “What would be your main reason not to choose one of the greenest petrol or diesel cars available as your next car?” and 33 per cent of visitors said that the cost of green vehicles compared to regular car models was the biggest obstacle to selecting a green model.
Despite Alistair Darling’s ‘scrappage scheme’, which provides motorists with a £2,000 discount on new vehicles when they trade in cars that are over ten years old, some families are wary of slipping into debt to buy a newer, greener car.
However, Chris Radford, chief executive officer of aap, the UK's biggest buyer of endowment policies, said some of its customers had sold their underachieving endowments in order to cover the cost of greener motoring.
Some of the most popular ‘green car’ models - the ones with the lowest CO2 emission ratings - cost substantially more than the basic entry level models. In fact, the research found that it could cost as much as £4,760 more to buy the environmentally-friendly model compared to the basic model.
However over the long term, going green could help save money as well as help save the planet as they can be cheaper to run, less expensive to tax and in some areas of the country, cheaper to park.
But help may be at hand for Britons worried about being able to afford a new car. People who have already considered surrendering their unwanted endowment policies to raise the cash to purchase a greener car may not realise that selling their underperforming endowments is another route available, according to Mr Radford, from aap.
He added that should aap decide to make an offer to buy an endowment, it will always pay more than the surrender value offered by the insurance company.
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