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ferent. While UNC evaluates managers quarterly, the endowment is continuously rebalancing; it is a fluid environment. As Tiger was having its problems, UNC's allocation had dwindled as the endowment had gradually increased allocations to other managers.

Vassar seemed to have difficulty reallocating assets. While a decision had been made to fire the manager, the investment committee did not act quickly enough, and performance was affected. Rebalancing was agreed upon in principle but not enforced, perhaps due to consensus decision making by committee.

Stanford University had a challenging 1998. In hindsight it would have had less assets allocated to hedge funds and would have added more at the end of 1998. They realize that by taking a contrarian approach, they would do better (i.e., add money to managers after a decline, when things look the darkest).

Stanford rebalances all the time, increasing allocations to managers when the spreads are widest.

There is a growing acceptance of allocating to new managers. A big plus is the new manager having worked at a well-known and well-respected hedge fund prior to spinning off and starting his or her own fund. One endowment, however, required a five-year track record to see how the manager did in various economic cycles.

One of the four endowments is actively searching for European managers. The others are satisfied with U.S. managers and note that many of these trade globally.

Transparency was not a concern for two of the endowments, as the endowments felt they were getting the information they needed—quarterly data on performance, exposure, leverage, and principal trades. They acknowledged they didn't need detailed information on a daily basis.

One endowment wanted a good third-party risk-reporting system, and also felt the larger and more established managers were not the most transparent. Only a subset sent regular risk reports detailing exposure and leverage.