The University of North Carolina's investment office logged a 37.8% return for the year ended in June and described the period as "an extraordinary year." In materials prepared for a board of trustees meeting, the University of North Carolina Management Co. pointed to strong global equity markets and said "exposure to SpaceX" was "an extremely strong tail wind." UNC declined to discuss the results ahead of Wednesday's meeting.
According to people familiar with the portfolio, UNC previously sold roughly $1 billion of SpaceX shares before the company went public in a record setting IPO, turning a few million dollars invested more than 15 years ago into a massive gain via a fund that backed Elon Musk's rocket company. Bloomberg reported in August that UNC still owns more than $1 billion of SpaceX stock. SpaceX closed Friday at $152.71, which is 13.1% above the $135 IPO price, giving the company a market value above $2 trillion.
Over the same period, the 37.8% figure is roughly double Wilshire Trust Universe Comparison Service's projected median return of 18.9% before fees for endowments exceeding $500 million.
The report also lists UNC's longer term marks: 20.1% annualized over three years, 12.5% over five years, and 13.5% over ten years.
Long term patience and careful choices help you protect and grow your savings. Join Briefs Finance CEO Jaspreet Singh on September 29th for a FREE live investor workshop, How to Profit From A Dollar That's Losing its Value, where he shows how we're spotting investment opportunities as the dollar falls. Save your spot.
As other schools report for the year ended June 30, results may jump depending on how much they own of SpaceX and AI leaders OpenAI Inc. and Anthropic PBC. Those windfalls can soften hits from tighter federal research funding, fewer prospective students, and earlier years of subdued private equity performance. As of June 30, University of North Carolina Management Co. managed $17 billion, with the Chapel Hill campus's endowment at $8.2 billion, and it also allocates capital for North Carolina State University, Appalachian State University and UNC Press. If you're watching from the sidelines, the takeaway is simple: patient, early bets on transformative technology can reshape long term performance, even when broader markets are just good, not great.
A steady plan can keep your goals on track through changing financial seasons. Our CEO Jaspreet Singh is hosting a FREE live investor workshop, How to Profit From A Dollar That's Losing its Value, on September 29th. Sign up free to join him live.
