FWIW ND and USC own part of Youtube

[Martin]

Notre Dame has a $18.8 Million stake in Youtube and USC has $14.6 Million in stock.
I don't know how they got it but they got in early, before the sale to Google.

[footballfiji]

how does a school own stock?

[Hail to the Victors Valiant]

I wonder if these universities are investing endowment funds. I didn't realize that univerisities made these kind of investments.

[Hail to the Victors Valiant]

That's what I want to know as well. Endowment Funds used?

[NCT]

I may be mistaken, but I think traditionally (at least for state-assisted schools like my alma mater) the schools themselves don't own stock, but associated Foundations definitely do. Since USC and ND are private schools, it may work differently. The UGA Foundation has a nice portfolio, and I'm sure AU's does, too. And there are lots of private companies that are partly or wholly owned by some or other University entity. Like, you know that Restasis stuff for people with chronic dry eyes that used to be advertised by that cute chick that was the pilot on Northern Exposure (Janine Turner)? That comes from the UGA College of Veterinary Medicine, so the school somehow gets a stake in the profits. Research projects at universities often become stakeholding interests in private commercial enterprises. Plus, schools (or their associated "foundations") always invest in the stock market, like anyone else who wants a good return on their money. I remember back when I was an undergrad, many of our neighbor students over at Emory were protesting for the school to divest itself of Coke stock due to Coke's continuing business with Apartheid-era South Africa. Heh. Emory divest of Coke? Who do they think built that school?

[HellYeahHokie]

I'm sure that's the case. Every school has an endowment fund of one sort or another, and how they invest has often been the subject of on school protests for years.

[Martin]

I suspect NCT is largely correct. The interesting part maybe be if the Universities were limited partners of the VC company that originally financed Youtube. That is very risky but potentially extremely lucrative. It paid off this time.

[mini_me]

Notre Dame has a $18.8 Million stake in Youtube and USC has $14.6 Million in stock.
I don't know how they got it but they got in early, before the sale to Google.


Then they own google, not youtube. Besides, 35 million is a drop in the bucket. Google bought Youtube for 1 or 2 billion as I recall.

[mini_me]

I wonder if these universities are investing endowment funds. I didn't realize that univerisities made these kind of investments.


What is probably going on here is that the ENDOWMENT owns these stocks. The beneciary of the Endowment is the university. These endowments are HUGE institutional investors. Yes, these endowments act like normal institutional investors so owning common stock (along with a variety of other asset classes) is a normal function of these type of investors.

More than likely, they have hired institutional money managers who are making these types of purchases for the part of the allocation they are responsible for managing.

[Martin]

Yes the stock is now Google stock. Youtube was bought by Google with stock. The point is this is NOT an ordinary investment. They were in Youtube before it was publicly traded which means they must have an extemely agressive investment strategy to invest with Venture Capaitalist in early stage startups.

BTW
Did I mention I used to be an Internet Executive. (Ahh for the times VC money grew on trees ... sigh.) Now I am part of another International technology startup. Thankfully, investment money is finally breaking free again. I can remember literally flying all over the world in 2000 as the investment capital dried up all at once and companies around the world withered and died.