The head of the investment company that manages the University of Virginia’s endowment has resigned.
Christopher Brightman vacated the post of CEO of the University of Virginia Investment Management Co. on Wednesday. His departure represents another major change in a year when the university is already slated to see the retirement of its two top officers, President John T. Casteen III and Executive Vice President Leonard W. Sandridge.
UVa spokeswoman Carol Wood said Brightman’s departure was for “personal reasons.”
“He did an outstanding job of leading UVIMCO as its chief executive officer for the last six years,” she said. “All who worked with him at the university wish him the very best.”
Wood said UVa will begin a national search for a successor.
John Macfarlane, a senior board member of the investment company, will serve as chairman of the company’s Investment Committee in the meantime. Sandridge is handling administrative duties.
“The university and the UVIMCO board have every confidence that the UVIMCO team we have in place will continue to do exceptional work in managing the university’s endowment,” Sandridge said in a statement.
Brightman’s tenure included periods of rapid growth but also yawning losses in UVa’s investment pools managed by UVIMCO. During the worst months of the economic crisis, for example, the overall value of the endowment pools declined by $1 billion. It finished its fiscal year June 30 with a value of about $4 billion.
The losses prompted some criticisms of investment strategy, but UVa officials continued to express confidence in Brightman and in the long-term performance of investments. In interviews last year, Brightman said the university shifted some investments out of the highest-risk categories, put more in cash and reduced short-term borrowing.
“While many of us have learned and relearned valuable lessons over the last year, I do not expect wholesale changes to the strategies that have served us so well for many years,” he said in an e-mail interview in September.
In the most recent monthly investment report, for the period ending Jan. 31, the endowment pools listed a value of $4.37 billion.
Money from the endowment makes up about 5 percent of the university operating budget.
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