Cornell’s CIO on Endowments Selling PE Stakes: ‘I Don’t Know What’s Going on There’

Cornell University's Chief Investment Officer Ken Miranda has publicly questioned the recent wave of secondary private equity sales among peer endowments, characterizing the trend as unexpectedly widespread. In an interview with Institutional Investor, Miranda stated his surprise at the volume of sales occurring across the endowment space, noting that Cornell's $10.7 billion portfolio has not faced comparable liquidity pressures. His comments underscore a fundamental divergence in how elite universities are managing their exposure to illiquid assets in the current market environment.

The secondaries market has experienced extraordinary growth over the past four years, culminating in a record-breaking $160 billion in deal volume during 2024. This surge has been substantially fueled by endowments and other limited partners seeking cash liquidity as macroeconomic conditions pressured traditional asset classes. With equity and fixed-income valuations declining, many institutional investors found their portfolios overweighted toward private markets relative to target allocations, creating urgency to rebalance through secondary sales. Prominent institutions including Harvard and Yale have reportedly entered into discussions regarding the sale of approximately $1 billion in private equity fund stakes, reflecting the broader liquidity challenge facing the endowment sector.

Cornell's investment approach differs markedly from this pattern. Rather than deviating from long-term allocation targets in response to short-term market movements, Miranda emphasized that Cornell has maintained strict adherence to its rebalancing framework. The endowment's methodology involves preset allocation ranges for private equity and other illiquid assets, with systematic rebalancing triggered when positions drift beyond those targets. This disciplined approach has allowed Cornell to preserve ample liquidity without forced asset sales, even amid global volatility. Miranda stated: "We've stuck to our guns. We rebalance when we should and have plenty of liquidity."

The divergence between Cornell's positioning and that of peer institutions reflects broader market dynamics. Institutional investors face constrained exit options in the current environment, with IPO markets effectively shuttered, M&A activity sluggish, and traditional liquidity sources limited. This structural backdrop has elevated the secondary market's importance as a mechanism for portfolio repositioning. However, Cornell's maintained liquidity and disciplined rebalancing suggest that proactive allocation management and steady-state commitment frameworks may insulate endowments from reactive secondary sales, offering an alternative model to the significant portfolio shifts occurring among comparable institutions.