David Russ, the former CIO of Dartmouth College, is trading the lush woods of Hanover, New Hampshire, for the concrete canyons of New York City. Russ, 56, will head up the newly created Investment Strategies and Solutions group within the asset management division of Credit Suisse, where he will be managing director and chief investment strategist.
Russ will offer his decades of portfolio construction and management expertise to Credit Suisse’s asset management clients. “This is an exciting opportunity to bring my experience as an endowment and pension plan investor with several of the world’s leading academic institutions to one of the world’s leading financial institutions,” he says.
The native Californian, who once served as treasurer of the University of California system and as CEO of University of Texas Investment Management Co., was the subject of Alpha’s October 2007 cover story, “Ivy League Education,” which explored the challenges Russ faced in managing the endowment of a small Ivy League school.
Russ took over Dartmouth’s investment reins in August 2005, and, partly through his intervention, the school’s endowment shot up 24 percent in the year ended June 30, 2007. But, like other colleges, Dartmouth has struggled with portfolio losses in the recent unforgiving markets. It reported a $700 million loss in 2008, reducing the fund to $3 billion by year-end. In late May the school announced that it would issue $400 million in bonds this month to pay for numerous construction and renovation projects begun during more halcyon times. The endowment fund will also receive capital as a cash reserve to fund capital commitments to private equity funds.
Last month, Standard & Poor’s lowered Dartmouth’s bond rating to AA+ from AAA. Other Ivy League schools — Harvard, Princeton and Cornell universities, as well as Stanford and Duke universities — have recently sold taxable bonds ranging from $500 million to $1.5 billion in total value. Moody’s Investors Service estimates that most U.S. colleges and universities with significant endowments will likely report declines of 20 to 30 percent for the fiscal year ending June 30, 2009.
