Princeton will not invest more in HEI

March 5, 2012 11:52 pm Leave a Comment

Princeton University has become the fourth Ivy League school to refrain from making additional investments in HEI Hotels & Resorts.

The decision, which the Daily Princetonian confirmed with Princeton Investment Company President Andrew Golden on Wednesday, follows Yale’s announcement last fall that the University will not invest in a fourth fund by the company. The National Labor Relations Board has investigated HEI over complaints of illegal retaliatory behavior in labor relations.

Nigel Hurst, senior vice president of human resources for HEI, told the News in November that a Yale representative informed him the University’s decision was motivated by “purely portfolio reasons.” Similarly, Golden said Princeton’s decision was “based purely on business reasons.”

“It would be absolutely wrong to infer that [the Princeton University Investment Company] had concluded that HEI was out of compliance with regulations or industry standards,” Golden said.

HEI first came under fire in fall 2008 when students at universities across the country decried its alleged mistreatment of workers and interference in workers’ efforts to unionize. Brown University decided to halt future investments in HEI on the recommendation of its investments responsibility committee in February 2010. The University of Pennsylvania, which only invested in the company’s first fund, announced in March 2010 it had no plans for future investments with HEI.

Senior Class Gift breaks 2011’s record

February 23, 2012 6:54 pm Leave a Comment

It’s official: this year’s Senior Class Gift campaign broke last year’s record.

When the campaign ended last night at midnight, 97.3 percent of current seniors had contributed to the gift, topping last year’s total by just 0.3 percent. Courtney Fukuda ’12, who co-chaired the campaign with Joey Mensah ’12, said they learned they broke the record during an event at Box 63 held to cap off the fundraising.

“We had come into the evening hopeful but not certain that it would happen,” Fukuda said. “Once it was 11:10 and we made it to 97.1 percent, we certainly celebrated.”

Fukuda said she does not yet have data on the amount of money raised in total. But because the campaign surpassed last year’s participation record, an anonymous donor will give $100,000 to the campaign, Fukuda said. And since three colleges — Branford, Davenport and Ezra Stiles — had perfect participation rates, other anonymous donors pledged $10,000 to the campaign for each of those colleges.

Berkeley, Saybrook and Silliman each notched 99 percent participation rates, with just one student in each college not donating, Fukuda said.

Malloy looks to cut scholarship funding

February 22, 2012 10:53 am Leave a Comment

Local students attending some of Connecticut’s top colleges, including Yale, may lose access to state scholarship funding as part a proposal from Gov. Dannel Malloy.

Malloy, who testified before the General Assembly’s Education Committee on Tuesday, is seeking to cut $6.7 million in funding from the Connecticut Independent College Student Grant program (CICS), which provides need-based scholarships to Connecticut students attending in-state private colleges. Under Malloy’s proposal, Connecticut schools with endowments of more than $200 million would lose CICS eligibility — the six colleges who fit that criteria are Yale, Wesleyan University, Connecticut College, Trinity College, Quinnipiac University, and Fairfield University.

The same scholarship program was cut last year under Malloy’s budget from $23 million to the current level of $18 million. And the governor’s proposed cuts would bring program funding down further to $11.3 million. Last year CICS awarded scholarships to more than 5,400 students at 16 different schools.

Senior Class Gift heads into final stretch

February 20, 2012 12:55 pm Leave a Comment

As this year’s Senior Class Gift campaign nears its end, organizers say they’re on track to beat last year’s record of 97 percent participation.

Last Thursday, Kevin Ryan ’85, the CEO of shopping website Gilt Groupe, sponsored a 24-hour challenge in which he pledged funds if the class of 2012 could reach certain participation benchmarks. In a 24-hour period, donations rose from $26,629.93 with 78.5 percent participation to $28,871.30 with 85.4 percent participation. Because the percentage participation surpassed 85 percent, Ryan donated $7,000 to the campaign. Had they surpassed 91 percent or 97 percent, he would have donated $10,000 or $15,000, respectively.

Courtney Fukuda ’12, who co-chairs the Senior Class Gift campaign with Joey Mensah ’12, said the campaign is on track to beat last year’s participation. As of this morning, 87.9 percent of seniors donated a total of $29,256.66; at the same time last year, 83.4 percent of the class of 2011 had donated $35,109. At the end of this year’s 24-hour challenge, only 184 seniors had not donated, Fukuda said.

“At this point, I feel like it took us a while to gain momentum and get people who wanted to give to click the button and do it,” Fukuda said. “I actually think we have a good chance [of beating last year’s record].”

Fukuda said she and the other organizers of the campaign will be reaching out to students face-to-face. They’ll also host an event at Box 63 Wednesday night starting at 9 p.m., as a final effort to gather donations before the campaign ends at midnight.

Yale raised $580 million in 2011, report says

February 17, 2012 3:48 pm Leave a Comment

An annual report released by the Council for Aid to Education on Wednesday showed that 14 Connecticut universities raised a combined $746 million in 2011, with Yale receiving more than three quarters of all donations.

Spurred by the end of the Yale Tomorrow fundraising campaign, the University’s $580 million total was the third largest in the country, falling short of Stanford’s $709 million and Harvard’s $639 million. According to the report, national fundraising totals exceeded $30 billion in the 2011 budget year, an 8.2 percent jump from 2010.

In Connecticut, Yale’s fundraising far outpaced the second place University of Connecticut, which raised $38.6 million. Other top fundraisers included Wesleyan University with $36.5 million, Trinity College with $24.7 million and Fairfield University with $16.2 million.

Five other Connecticut institutions raised over $5 million, the report said.

[Via Hartford Courant]

CORRECTION: Feb. 20, 2012

An earlier version of this article incorrectly referred to the Council for Aid to Education as the Center for Aid to Education.

Yale bought $23.2 million in Chinese index fund

February 15, 2012 10:59 pm Leave a Comment

Yale acquired a roughly $23.2 million stake in a Chinese index fund during the last fiscal quarter.

According to a report the University filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission for the three-month period that ended Dec. 31, the Yale Investments Office also sold shares in TiVO, Inc. and bought shares of Zipcar, Inc. The investments listed that were also in last quarter’s Form 13F — which the SEC requires of all institutional investment managers who oversee more than $100 million in public equities — increased in value between October and December.

But the $200 million of holdings in the filing indicate little about the overall performance of Yale’s investments, as they only represent about one percent of the University’s $19.4 billion endowment. The vast majority of Yale’s endowment funds are not listed in the report because they are handled by managers external to the University. International equities, hedge funds, private equity and real asset classes are also not included in the filing.

$tanford fundraising totals top Yale Tomorrow

February 12, 2012 10:56 pm Leave a Comment

Yale celebrated its $3.88 billion Yale Tomorrow campaign this September, turning the campus blue in recognition of a record-breaking campaign during one of the worst economic recessions in U.S. history.

But Stanford University upstaged Yale Wednesday, announcing that the five-year Stanford Challenge campaign, which ended Dec. 31, 2011, had raised $6.2 billion. According to a press release from the university, 166,000 donors made 560,000 gifts to surpass Stanford’s original goal of $4.3 billion.

“The response from the extended Stanford family was tremendous. This was a community joining together for something they believe in,” Stanford President John Hennessy said.

Thanks to the money, the university will be able to endow 130 new professorships, build or renovate 38 buildings and pour $250 million into undergraduate financial aid.

Yale still faces budget shortfall

January 18, 2012 7:22 pm Leave a Comment

More than three years after the onset of the recession, administrators say Yale’s budget has still not fully recovered.

In a letter to faculty today, University President Richard Levin and Provost Peter Salovey said that although the University endowment rose by 21.9 percent in the fiscal year that ended June 30, a rise in spending is expected to outpace an increase in revenue for the 2012-’13 academic year. This anticipated gap will require administrators to make budget cuts — but not the “across-the-board cost reductions” experienced in recent years.

“This year’s budget process will close the Fiscal Year 2013 gap, and give us time to reflect on the future priorities for the University and the best approach for funding them,” Levin and Salovey said. “Over the coming months, and extending into next fall, we will be working with deans, directors, faculty, and staff to identify the most important priorities for the future and how we might find the resources to advance them.”

Salovey and Levin said budget cuts have reduced the $350 million budget gap that followed the roughly 25 percent investment loss in fiscal year 2009. But revenue is only expected to increase by 2.6 percent next year because of the endowment’s spending rule while expenses are anticipated to grow by 6 percent.

Prof. Shiller says bond market may face bubble

January 12, 2012 9:28 am Leave a Comment

When Yale economics professor Robert Shiller uses the word “bubble,” people listen.

The Arthur M. Okun Professor of Economics said Wednesday that the United States bond market could be in a bubble, according to a report by Bloomberg News. At a conference in Oslo, Shiller said long-term interests are currently at a “record low.”

Shiller’s 2000 book “Irrational Exuberance” foresaw the end of the dot-com bubble, and he saw the housing bubble coming, as well. In a March 2011 interview with the News, Shiller discussed the recent housing crisis, stating that he did not think a bubble in real-estate will emerge again soon.

“My feeling right now is that the housing market is so damaged, our psychology is not ready to go gangbusters on another bubble, not for years,” Shiller said.

Named one of the 50 most influential individuals in global finance by Bloomberg News, Shiller has worked at Yale since 1982.

New Haven adds 36 retail stores in 2011

December 26, 2011 11:36 pm Leave a Comment

As the city’s economy continues to recover from the recession, Mayor John DeStefano Jr. said last week that New Haven’s retail market had one of the strongest years “in recent memory”. And that’s why if you want to learn more about retail profitability you should go to https://www.retailexpress.com/ to find the best resources for this. If you’re planning to set up your own retail shop, you may seek Custom Shop Front Fabrication services to build an appealing front display.

Thirty-six new retail businesses opened in New Haven in the last year, DeStefano announced in a Wednesday press release. New additions to the city range from multi-billion-dollar national chains, such as the Apple Store at 65 Broadway and the Verizon Wireless store at 72 Church St., to local startups, including Arpaia Lang Jewelry at 806 Chapel St. and the Cave A’ Vin bar at 975 State St.

Anne Haynes, head of the Economic Development Corporation of New Haven, said that large-scale institutions and developments — 300 George Street, Higher One, Science Park — are acting as “magnets” for the city, spawning tertiary business developments in their wake.

These new businesses did little to help New Haven’s unemployment rate, though, which stayed at 9 percent throughout the year, City Hall spokeswoman Elizabeth Benton ’04 said.

Fancy wrapping paper can be bad, researchers say

December 24, 2011 5:19 pm Leave a Comment

Scrambling to wrap those last few presents? Drop the fancy wrapping paper, put down the ribbon and stop channeling Martha Stewart — a recent Yale study suggests you might be better off keeping it simple.

Elaborate wrapping heightens gift recipients’ expectations and may not improve the giving and receiving experience, according to research conducted by School of Management professors Nathan Novemsky and Ravi Dhar. Rather than making a less desirable gift more appealing, nice wrapping increases the disappointment of receiving unwanted presents. The researchers also concluded that wrapping desirable gifts plainly can increase recipients’ glee upon opening because their expectations for the gift are not overly heightened.

“Dial down the amount of effort, the amount of time, the amount of expense you’re willing [to] put into gift wrapping because it’s not really making people happier,” Novemsky said in a Thursday interview with Marketplace.

No need to overachieve, Yale. It’s winter break.

Yale Daily News

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