Harvard Endowment Fund

Harvard Management Co. names Colin Butterfield, former CEO of TIAA's Brazilian farmland investment company, as head of natural resources at the university’s $37.6 billion endowment.

Worldwide, farmland is a hot investment area, but it’s also controversial, opaque, illiquid and sometimes relies on local operation that presents a risk of fraud.

Harvard’s ownership of Agrícola Brinzal casts serious doubts on the wisdom of Harvard Management Company’s current policies.

Canada's Public Sector Pension Investment Board is looking to capitalise on favourable growing conditions and access to Asian markets having taken a 30 percent stake in the central North Island's Kaingaroa forestry estate.

Since Jane Mendillo took over the endowment in July 2008, Harvard’s holdings of forests, farms and other natural resources in Brazil as well as in New Zealand and Romania have grown to about 10 percent of the portfolio -- more than $3 billion -- and she wants to add more.

The chief of Harvard University’s $32 billion endowment said the fund has been eyeing timberland, farmland, infrastructure, energy and water-related investments in anticipation of growing global demand.

US groups call on Harvard to reconsider its institutional participation in agricultural land investments and to look for more just and sustainable ways to support its educational and research missions.

At the current stage, we do not have adequately available evidence to consider either HMC or Emergent at fault for the purported economic wrongdoings outlined in the Oakland Institute report.

Après les Etats et les entreprises étrangères, les grandes facultés d’outre-Atlantique investissent massivement sur le continent noir. Et les paysans locaux n’en bénéficient guère.

A new report published this week claims farmers in Africa are being driven off their traditional lands to make way for vast new industrial farming projects backed by European hedge funds seeking profits and foreign countries looking for cheap food.

Institutions including Harvard and Vanderbilt reportedly use hedge funds to buy land in deals that may force farmers out.

Last week, bids closed for an 83% stake in Fonterra's biggest supplier, Dairy Holdings, which oversees 72 South Island farms. Bidders reportedly include Chinese dairy giant Bright Dairy, a pastoral fund owned by Australian investment bank Macquarie Group, British private equity firm Terra Firma. US private equity firm Carlyle Group and the Harvard Endowment Fund.