Students in the garden at St Edmund Hall

The Oxford Endowment Fund

The Oxford Endowment Fund aims to preserve and grow the value of perpetuity capital, while providing a sustainable income stream for our investors’ charitable purposes

The OEF has increased in size to approximately £6bn through a combination of performance and inflows from investors.

Investment objective

The specific investment objective of the Oxford Endowment Fund is to grow our investors’ capital by an average of 5% per annum in real terms, and to achieve this at a lower volatility than would be experienced by investing solely in the public equity markets. This investment objective is long term and not a year by year measure.

The specific distribution policy is to distribute 4.25% of the average of the past 20 quarters’ NAV, subject to a cap of 10% increase and a floor of the last year’s distribution. This formula has the benefit of providing a more predictable stream of income.

Performance to 31 December 2023

  • Net asset value (£m)
  • Annual distribution (£m)

The Oxford Endowment Fund has distributed £1.6bn and returned 246.9% since inception.

Asset allocation at 31 December 2023

Derived from our investment philosophy, our asset allocation is designed to generate significant real returns. This naturally leads to a focus on investments in equities, with property and credit used as diversified sources of return. We refer to these as risk assets.