Recently, members of the Brandes Institute Advisory Board discussed the approach to investing popularised by David Swensen of the Yale Endowment and others in that sector during the mid-1980s, and hence generally known as the Endowment Model. By moving away from a traditional 60% equity/40% bond portfolio and adding exposure to other asset classes such as private equity, hedge funds and venture capital funds, many proponents delivered better absolute and risk-adjusted returns over traditional approaches.
