Harvard Said to Seek Sale of $2.5 Billion in Endowment Assets

(Bloomberg) -- Harvard University's endowment is trying to sell about $2.5 billion of private equity, venture capital and real estate investments, according to a person familiar with the matter.

Harvard Management Co., which oversees the university's $35.7 billion endowment, has hired Cogent Partners, a unit of Greenhill & Co., to seek bidders in the secondary market, the person said. Harvard is shopping almost $1 billion of private equity and venture capital investments, and about $1.6 billion of real estate, the person said.

The proposed sale was earlier reported by Axios. Harvard Management declined to comment. Cogent couldn't immediately be reached for comment.

Harvard Management, which runs the largest endowment in higher education, is in the midst of major changes after years of producing returns that trailed peers such as Yale University. Earlier this year it announced plans to downsize a staff of 230 people by half, shutter internal hedge funds and seek to spin out some portfolio managers, including bond and equities traders as well as a team overseeing real estate.

To contact the reporter on this story: Michael McDonald in Boston at mmcdonald10@bloomberg.net.

To contact the editor responsible for this story: Mary Romano at mromano6@bloomberg.net.