Harvard Management Company Sells Holdings in Tech, Increases Facebook Investments in Third Quarter | News

Harvard Administration Firm offered its holdings in a number of expertise and pharmaceutical corporations whereas rising its investments in Fb as its public securities portfolio fell by 2 p.c to $1.71 billion within the third quarter of 2021.

HMC reported the determine in its newest filings with the Securities and Alternate Fee. The regulatory company requires funding managers who oversee greater than $100 million in property to reveal public securities holdings every quarter.

The College’s inventory portfolio, one of many solely publicly accessible sources of data on HMC’s investments, accounts for three p.c of Harvard’s endowment.

The College’s endowment spiked to $53.2 billion within the fiscal yr ending in June 2021, posting 33.6 p.c returns as its investments benefited from sturdy private and non-private fairness markets.

Within the third quarter, which ran from June 1 to Sept. 30, HMC offered off its shares within the expertise corporations Palo Alto Community and Intercontinental Alternate. Over the identical interval, it additionally offered its holdings in DaVita Inc, a healthcare firm owned by Berkshire Hathaway; Unity Software program, a online game software program growth firm; Pinduoduo Inc, one in all China’s largest e-commerce platforms; NuCana, a biopharmaceutical firm specializing in most cancers therapies; and Cortexyme, a biopharmaceutical firm specializing in therapies for degenerative illnesses.

HMC additionally offered a few of its shares in Apple, lowering its holdings within the tech firm from $333 million to $267 million. Apple was nonetheless the most important single holding reported within the submitting.

HMC elevated its shares in Fb by 37 p.c, to a present worth of round $242 million. The submitting describes investments made within the third quarter, which predated the Fb firm’s October announcement that it could rebrand as Meta Platforms.

The College additionally expanded its portfolio by buying shares in biotechnology corporations Pacific Biosciences of California and Sana Biotechnologies, and monetary expertise firm Affirm Holdings. The whole worth of those holdings stand at $5.9 million, $26.2 million, and $89.eight million, respectively.

In its largest acquisition of the quarter, HMC bought 61,070 shares totalling $163 million in Alphabet, Google’s guardian firm.

John M. Longo, a professor at Rutgers Enterprise College and the Chief Funding Officer for the Beacon Belief, wrote in an e-mail that the modifications in investments don’t mirror main modifications to the course of the endowment’s funding technique.

In keeping with previous quarters, the vast majority of corporations HMC has public securities in are within the expertise, biotechnology, or pharmaceutical sectors.

“The modifications made by Harvard Administration Firm (HMC) seem like incremental in nature reasonably than a big change in asset allocation or trade publicity,” Longo wrote.

He added that the acquisition of Fb and Alphabet shares point out HMC’s confidence within the two expertise corporations.

“In addition they seem to have quite a lot of confidence in Fb, now referred to as Meta Platforms, since they added to its place when it was already amongst their largest fairness holdings,” Longo wrote. “The brand new place in Alphabet additionally signifies a excessive stage of confidence since it’s amongst their high 5 fairness holdings.”

Patrick S. McKiernan, a spokesperson for HMC, declined to touch upon the filings, citing the endowment’s coverage to not touch upon particular person investments.

—Workers Author Virginia L. Ma may be reached at [email protected]

—Workers Author Kevin A. Simauchi may be reached at [email protected] Comply with him on Twitter @Simauchi.