Tax Filing Shows How Goldman Sachs Invests Its Foundation Money

The latest tax filing for the Goldman Sachs Foundation shows that it invests unlike most other nonprofit institution, making numerous investments in hedge funds and futures contracts in stocks, bonds, and currencies, The New York Times reports.

“I have never seen anything like it,” said Verne O. Sedlacek, president of Commonfund, when the newspaper showed him the 2007 filing, which was nearly three inches thick. Commonfund manages more than $25-billion for colleges and other nonprofit groups.

More than half of the foundation’s portfolio for the year ending November 2008 was devoted to so-called alternative investments such as hedge funds, private equity, commodities, and real-estate trusts. The biggest gift it made was $3.2-million to the Johns Hopkins University.

Goldman has given about $1-billion to charity in the last decade, according to a company spokesman. The firm, reportedly bracing for a public furor over billions of dollars in bonuses due to be distributed to top executives, recently set aside $200-million to nearly double its charity arm’s assets.

The head of New York-based antipoverty group the Robin Hood Foundation, to which Goldman and other financial firms are major contributors, tells Bloomberg that he welcomes the return of record Wall Street bonuses as a boon to giving. “It’s clear that New York City is better off in all sorts of ways if there’s a healthy financial community,” said David Saltzman, the charity’s executive director.

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