Skorina unveils Ultimate Outsourcer List, Version 3.2 The time has come to update our list of firms providing discretionary investment management services — commonly known as outsourced chief investment officers, aka OCIOs — to institutional clients. This list should help anyone considering the OCIO option. We are thinking specifically of board members and directors at pensions, endowments, foundations, and other tax-exempt funds. You now have a comprehensive list of firms who provide OCIO services and how to reach them. The future looks sunny for the OCIOs. Commonfund surveyed the whole landscape for outsourcing nonprofits back in August. They found that around one-third of all nonprofit funds have already “substantially outsourced” management of their portfolios. That includes 38 percent of colleges, 38 percent of private foundations, and 30 percent of operating charities. See: https://www.commonfund.org/InvestorResources/Publications/ White%20Papers/2013%200625%20Outsourcing%20White%20Paper %20(Jarvis).pdf We’re looking at the business from the other side of the table here: the number of OCIO firms and their claimed assets under discretionary management. Our list has grown from 45 outsourcers three years ago to 77 today. That’s a jump of 71 percent. Some are new firms stepping into the market. Some are just previously unknown to us. Reported total AUM under discretionary management is now at approximately $1,027.2 trillion. That’s an increase of $340.58 billion, or almost 50 percent, from the list we published in July 2012 (AUM $686.62). It’s a fascinating range of vendors, too. From relatively small (but often highly-experienced) boutiques to financial giants like JP Morgan. And discretionary AUMs for individual firms range from “only” a few hundred million up to tens of billions of dollars. We’ve updated all company and contact names, phone numbers and emails, and confirmed them all correct as of July 2014. Give them a call. They would love to hear from you. Tell them Skorina sent you….
Special report on Big Endowment Performance
SPECIAL REPORT ON BIG ENDOWMENT PERFORMANCE Below, we present a special report ranking twelve of the most-watched U.S. endowments: the Ivys and Alt-Ivys, with the latest data on investment returns and leadership compensation through FY 2013. We recruit chief investment officers and senior asset managers, so we need to track the performance of the best in the business. The boards and committees who retain us want hard evidence to support their hiring decisions and benchmark their own organizations. This is one of the ways we try to help. We also analyze the longer-term performance of these important funds, popping open the hood to get a better understanding of their investment process. Who really drives returns? Is it the investment committees making allocation decisions, or active management by the investment office and external managers? What’s the division of labor and who should get the credit (or blame)? We won’t keep you in suspense. After looking at some academic work and deconstructing some endowment returns, our conclusion is: What the CIO and his/her team do all year, even after the policy portfolio has been set, matters a great deal. Allocation is not destiny. Coming attractions: In our next letter we’ll be recapping and critiquing recent comings-and-goings among the country’s top investment managers and other hot industry topics. And, we’ll soon be offering a revamped and updated version of our list of outsourced CIO (OCIO) vendors. So, to those of you amongst the ever-growing ranks of OCIO firms, please send me your latest AUM under full discretion and contact information for the list. If potential customers can’t find your number, they won’t call you. Remember: If you like your newsletter, you can keep it! And that’s a promise! If you currently enjoy our platinum-level coverage, we’ll keep it coming. And, we invite…