The University of Texas Investment Management Co., the second-largest U.S. academic endowment, took delivery of almost $1 billion in gold bullion and is storing the bars in a New York vault, according to the fundÂ’s board.
The fund, whose $19.9 billion in assets ranked it behind Harvard UniversityÂ’s endowment as of August, according to the National Association of College and University Business Officers, added about $500 million in gold investments to an existing stake last year, said Bruce Zimmerman, the endowmentÂ’s chief executive officer. The holdings are worth about $987 million, based on yesterdayÂ’s closing price of $1,486 an ounce for Comex futures.
The decision to turn the fundÂ’s investment into gold bars was influenced by Kyle Bass, a Dallas hedge fund manager and member of the endowmentÂ’s board, Zimmerman said at its annual meeting on April 14. Bass made $500 million on the U.S. subprime-mortgage collapse.
“Central banks are printing more money than they ever have, so what’s the value of money in terms of purchases of goods and services,” Bass said yesterday in a telephone interview. “I look at gold as just another currency that they can’t print any more of.” |