Harvard Management will cut staff by about 25%

Harvard Management Co., the firm that manages the university's endowment, will reduce its staff by about 25 percent over the next several months, a Harvard University spokesman confirmed today.

It has been estimated that the endowment lost $8 billion as the US economy slumped last year.

Harvard Management Co. employs about 200 people so reducing its headcount by a quarter works out to about 50 jobs.

Harvard Management has drawn fire in a perennial debate over how it compensates its money managers. In the latest round of this skirmish, a small group of university alumni recently protested the fact that its six top money managers earned $26.9 million in the most recent fiscal year. To read a Globe story about the protest, please click here.

In an e-mail today, Harvard spokesman John Longbrake wrote: "The Harvard Management Company's mission is to preserve and enhance the financial assets of Harvard University over the long term in support of the university's academic programs, its students, and its faculty. To maintain its position as a world-class investment organization, the new management team headed by Jane Mendillo has analyzed its current structure and processes, and has launched a series of steps to re-balance and re-engineer the organization. Targeted reductions will occur throughout the HMC and will include some investment professionals, as well as 'back office' and other support personnel - operations, IT, human resources, and legal."

A Globe story in December noted: "In a letter to university deans this month, Harvard president Drew G. Faust said the endowment had lost about 22 percent of its value between June 30 and the end of October. The endowment, which funds about 35 percent of Harvard's annual operating budget, shrank from $36.8 billion to about $28.7 billion during that period."

To read that story, please click here.

A Bloomberg News story today about looming staff cuts at Harvard Management Co. noted, "The dismissals were reported earlier by Pensions & Investments."
(By Chris Reidy and Ross Kerber, Globe staff)