Harvard Opens Massive Secondary Sale
Last Friday, I asked you to name the university endowment that’s trying to sell a large portfolio of private equity fund commitments. I probably should have italicized the word “large,” or perhaps used a more emphatic synonym like humongous. The result was that some of you offered up schools like Duke and Stanford – both of which have assets for sale on the secondary market, but not of the scope I was suggesting. Then yesterday one of you got it right, which means it’s time to share… The answer we were looking for was Harvard. The Ivy Leaguer has retained Cogent Partners to pitch what could be one of the largest secondary sales of all time, with an optimistic asking price in excess of $1 billion. The available portfolio includes a variety of venture capital and buyouts funds, albeit none of its crème de la crème VC (i.e., Sequoia Capital or
