One of the Greatest Investors - You've probably never heard of!

Back in early May of 2021 one of the people who I have read extensively about passed away from a long battle with cancer at the age of 67. Many of you have probably never heard of David Swensen (he isn’t talked about like a Warren Buffett) but many of you probably would have heard of his employer that being the prestigious Yale University based in the USA which tends to dole out the leaders of industry.

David assumed the management of Yale’s endowment fund back in the mid 1980’s when he was only in his early 30s. At the time the endowment fund (which is a pool of investments that the University had received from donor’s with the intention of providing funds to the university to continue to grow) stood at $1.3 billion. In the subsequent decades to come under David’s stewardship the endowment fund grew by over $45.6 billion. His 35 year tenure generated returns of 13.1% per annum through to June 2020 ( bare in mind this calculation captures the full brunt of the COVID sell off but not the recovery bull market we find ourselves in now).

David was often invited to leave Yale and setup his own hedge fund where he could have generated substantial personal wealth for himself and his family, however he preferred to shun the limelight of Wall Street. He felt like he was contributing more to the education of America’s youth in his role at the endowment fund. There is no doubt that his legacy at Yale will be remembered for decades to come with the endowment fund now covering more than one-third of the university’s annual budget.

For those of you interested in reading more about this great investor please find a link to David’s life story as told by Yale News https://news.yale.edu/2021/05/06/self-confident-yet-selfless-yales-david-swensen-dies-67