Plenty to play for as foundations search for higher returns

Hedge funds have successfully courted investment by foundations and endowments in recent years, leading to a major shift towards institutionalisation in the industry. It's a trend that looks set to continue, with predictions of growing investment in alternatives by institutions looking to improve falling returns from their traditional investments.

In the frothy markets of the 1980s and 1990s, foundations and endowments met their investment targets easily through a mixture of domestic stocks and bonds, but that changed as the millennium ended in a bear market that made many question whether the previous two decades had been an aberration.

Traditional institutional investments have improved since then, but many institutions continue to look at hedge funds as a way of diversifying their portfolios and meeting future obligations.

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