Harvard U. Discloses Compensation of Endowment Managers

Harvard University has disclosed the compensation of the six highest-paid executives who oversee the university’s endowment, including the former chief executive of Harvard Management Company, Mohamed El-Erian, who was paid $6.5-million last year, reports The Boston Globe.

While the endowment achieved returns of 23 percent, its fourth-best annual performance since 1974, the compensation packages for endowment managers were well below the level of many past payouts.

Some critics still wonder, however, if such high levels of compensation are appropriate for managers in a nonprofit institution. But Alan Johnson, a financial-services pay consultant in New York, said that the investment managers could have made as much as five times that amount working for private companies.

Mr. El-Erian, who was named to run the endowment at the start of 2006, said in September he would return to his former company in California, Pacific Investment Management Company, citing family concerns.

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