That's negative investment value, not investment income.
On Wed, Nov 9, 2022, 2:36 PM Steven Walling <steven.walling(a)gmail.com>
wrote:
On Wed, Nov 9, 2022 at 10:37 AM Andreas Kolbe <jayen466(a)gmail.com> wrote:
Dear WMF Finance staff,
I inquired over a week ago on Meta-Wiki why the WMF is reporting a
negative investment income (–$12 million). There has been no answer to
date.[1]
I am a layperson, but how can an investment income be negative? Would you
mind sharing what this is about?
You probably didn't get a prompt answer because "how can investment income
be negative" is something you could have Googled before asking the finance
team.
Investments can lose value.* The US stock market has lost a tremendous
amount of value over the last year, so it would not be surprising that most
investments would have a negative return recently.
*
https://www.investopedia.com/terms/n/negative-return.asp
https://www.finra.org/investors/investing/investing-basics/risk
I was also surprised to find that the reported increase in net assets for
the 2021–2022 financial year was "only"
$8.2 million. The third-quarter F&A
tuning session published in May (based on data as of March 31) forecast a
far higher surplus, with an increase in net assets of $25.9 million.[2]
Would you mind sharing what happened in the fourth quarter to reduce the
surplus by so much?
Best wishes,
Andreas
[1]
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:Wikimedia_Foundation_reports/Financial…
[2]
https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=File%3AF%26A_Tuning_Session…
On Tue, Nov 1, 2022 at 3:45 PM Andreas Kolbe <jayen466(a)gmail.com> wrote:
Dear all,
The WMF's audited financial statements are now available here:
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/foundation/2/26/Wikimedia_Foundation…
Some key figures from the page numbered 4 (page 6 in the pdf):
– Net invest income was negative: –$12M (down $16M)
– Total support and revenue was $155M (down $8M due to that negative
investment income)
– Total expenses were $146M (up $34M)
– Salaries and wages were $88M (up $20M)
– Net assets at end of year increased by $8M
For reference, the end-of-year increase in net assets forecast in the
third-quarter Finance & Administration tuning session deck published in May
2022 was $25.9M:
https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=File%3AF%26A_Tuning_Session…
Best,
Andreas
_______________________________________________
Wikimedia-l mailing list --
wikimedia-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org, guidelines
at:
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines and
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia-l
Public archives at
https://lists.wikimedia.org/hyperkitty/list/wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org…
To unsubscribe send an email to wikimedia-l-leave(a)lists.wikimedia.org
_______________________________________________
Wikimedia-l mailing list -- wikimedia-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org, guidelines
at:
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines and
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia-l
Public archives at
https://lists.wikimedia.org/hyperkitty/list/wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org…
To unsubscribe send an email to wikimedia-l-leave(a)lists.wikimedia.org