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May
27th, 2010
With a large number of college annual giving campaigns
concluding at the end of June, it is very likely that
the recent precipitous drop in the Dow Jones Industrial
Average is not helping college development teams in
their final push to achieve their annual goals. As of
Friday May 21st, the Dow was down 1,115 points from
its April 26th high and down 663 points since the end
of the first Quarter. Given that many top donors and
college trustees have large portions of their net worths
invested in publically-traded companies, these invaluable
contributors may be less inclined to donate large sums
over the next month.
Fortunately for many colleges,
some of their wealthiest alums have seen their portfolios
rise since the end of the first Quarter. According to
Donor Watch’s list of the wealthiest college graduates*,
which includes 125 alums of US undergraduate institutions,
nearly 28% of alums on the list actually saw their equity
portfolios of SEC filed holdings rise since March 31st.
Combined, these 35 alums’ equity portfolios increased
by over $1,180 million. Another 20% of DonorWatch’s
wealthiest college graduates saw their portfolios decrease
by less than 5%.
Among the gainers on the list,
Harvard College had 4 alums whose portfolios increased
by a combined $41 million. The group of Harvard alums
was led by Washington Post (WPO) CEO Donald Graham whose
holdings in the newspaper company jumped by over $15
million. Three alums of University of Pennsylvania outdid
their Ivy League rival as their combined equity holdings
gained an impressive $263 million. This group was led
by Daniel Och, the founder of hedge fund manager Och-Ziff
Capital Management (NYSE: OZM), who saw his holdings
in his hedge fund firm increase by $203 million.
A couple of University of North
Carolina at Chapel Hill alums have also realized major
gains, as CEO Levine Howard of Family Dollar Stores
Inc (FDO) and Executive Chairman Fredric N Eshelman
of Pharmaceutical Product Development Inc (PPDI) saw
their holdings in their companies increase by $19 million
and $8 million, respectively. Other notable colleges
on the top donor list include George Washington University,
the University of Southern California, and the University
of California, Los Angeles.
Among the colleges represented
on DonorWatch’s list of wealthiest college graduates,
only 9 colleges have 3 or more alums on the list. The
top three institutions include Harvard College with
10 alums, Yale University with 7 alums and Princeton
University with 7 alums. The wealthiest Princeton alum,
Jeff Bezos of Amazon.com (AMZN), is also the largest
seller since March 31st. Through a series of planned
sales from May 3rd through the 5th, Mr. Bezos sold 2,000,000
shares of AMZN, totaling over $267 million in cash.
New York University, University
of Minnesota, Massachusetts Institute of Technology,
University of California Berkeley, University of North
Carolina at Chapel Hill, and the University of Pennsylvania
round out the top donor list with 3 alums each.
J3 Donor Watch provides fundraising
and development professionals at leading colleges and
universities with a unique tool to manage their relationships
with top and high potential donors. DonorWatch monitors
the stock holdings of top donors and alums by using
SEC filings and provides its users with best-in-class
analyses, filters and alerts, empowering fundraisers
to focus on the big picture. For more information about
Donor Watch, please visit its product page.
*The Donor Watch list was compiled
using publically available information from SEC insider
filings. As of 5/21/2010, all individuals on the list
had at least $150 million in equities according to SEC
filings. The list of wealthiest college graduates excludes
graduates of foreign institutions as well as alums that
attended a college but never graduated. The Top Donor
list also excludes individuals whose public holdings
from SEC filings are tied to individual or family trusts,
as well as individuals whose investments are part of
the portfolios of the hedge fund, private equity firm
or other investment institution that they manage. All
equities were valued using closing prices as of 5/21/2010.
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