[Wikimedia-l] Wikimedia (Foundation) endowment

[Craig Franklin]

Hi Manuel,

In my professional experience with endowments (which isn't that extensive,
I must confess), the investments are typically extremely conservative and
designed to give a steady and reliable long term flow of dividends, rather
than shooting for quick capital gains through risky investments in shares
or property.  Things like debentures, government bonds, fixed interest
deposits, and so forth.  Even in these current times of financial
uncertainty, a competent investment adviser should be able to construct an
investment portfolio that provides a modest return with little risk.

Regards,
Craig Franklin

Message: 5
> Date: Thu, 14 Mar 2013 13:00:21 +0100
> From: Manuel Schneider <manuel.schneider at wikimedia.ch>
> To: Wikimedia Mailing List <wikimedia-l at lists.wikimedia.org>
> Subject: Re: [Wikimedia-l] Wikimedia (Foundation) endowment
> Message-ID: <5141BBD5.8050900 at wikimedia.ch>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=utf-8
>
> Thanks Andrew and Philippe for your explanation and links.
>
> So that is a plan to build a reserve of funds that is so big that the
> operation can be funded by the capital's gain - interest, dividends...
>
> Sounds interesting, even though the endowment must be huge to cover our
> yearly budgets. Another problem is that it is currently very hard to
> find an interesting investment with low risks. Interest rates have been
> reduced by the major central banks in order to overcome the global
> recession, many formerly safe and interesting investments became risky
> and those who are still safe partly have even negative interest rates
> (eg. german state bonds).
>
>
> /Manuel
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> Wikimedia CH - Verein zur Förderung Freien Wissens
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