Sadly I can't use the same headline as I did yesterday - although it would be just as fitting for this blog entry. University endowments in the US are big business - Harvard and Yale put some well known financial instituions to shame. And now a number of endowments are finally buying into the strcutured products markets.
In four meetings this week, senior executives at investment banks waxed lyrical on the trend of endowments buying derivatives-based investments. For as long as I've covered the market it's been the goal of these same people to get the endowments on board. And so it's pleasing to see the results.
In the April issue of Structured Products I will report on just how advanced some of these endowments have become in their use of structured products.
Not only do they put their European counterparts to shame by the sheer size of funds under management; their derivatives prowess could arguably put a number of major banks, hedge funds and investment firms to shame too.