Yale Endowment Explores $6 Billion Secondary Sale of Private Equity Assets

Yale University is considering unloading a sizeable portion of its private equity holdings in what could be one of the largest secondary offerings by an academic endowment.

The $41.4 billion endowment has hired Evercore to solicit bids for a package of buyout and venture capital commitments, according to people familiar with the matter. While Yale hasn’t set a hard target, Secondaries Investor reports the portfolio is expected to approach $6 billion in net asset value, putting it on par with—or larger than—2023’s record-setting University of Pennsylvania transaction.

Yale pioneered the endowment model that emphasized illiquid alternatives but, alongside other peers, is facing funding pressures following the Trump administration’s halt to federal research grants.

Endowments are up against the same exit slowdown and sluggish distributions as everyone else, which has lengthened cash-return cycles and forced institutions to fund scholarships, labs, and capital projects out of public markets holdings or fresh debt.

Trump has also threatened to revoke endowment tax-exempt status—initially singling out Harvard—which would make donor fundraising more challenging and risk future funding gaps.

Other universities are taking similar action on liquidity measures: Harvard is lining up $750 million of taxable bonds, Brown tapped a $300 million term loan this month, and Princeton is weighing a $320 million bond sale.

“We want the option value of cash, we want the liquidity,” Northwestern University chief investment officer Amy Falls told a Bloomberg conference in March, explaining her own decision to trim private-equity exposure. “If something happens and we have to take money out of the endowment, we can.”

Yale’s decision may also have more fundamental motivations.

The endowment posted a 5.7 percent return for the June 2024 fiscal year, lagging many of its peers. The endowment no longer discloses precise asset class weights, but estimates are that roughly a third of the university’s total assets are allocated to private equity and venture.

A $6 billion sale would, therefore, translate into around 40 percent of private holdings, suggesting a larger strategic shift rather than temporary pruning.

A spokesperson said Yale “remains committed to private equity and continues to make new commitments,” adding that any transaction would be driven by “long-term portfolio construction.”

The spokesperson declined to provide specifics on timing or size, but initial bids are expected to be due in early summer.