Our approach

How we invest

We invest to generate long-term returns that support our clients’ long-term ambitions. Rooted in the endowment style of investing, we employ active management and extensive experience in alternative investments where manager selection and skill are rewarded.

GEM partners with talented managers who capitalize on market inefficiencies in the pursuit of alpha. We build close relationships with these managers, often serving as a trusted advisor and active co-investor. Our dedicated sourcing team and disciplined selection process affords our clients access to what we believe to be high-potential opportunities that are difficult to replicate.

Our investment tenets

While we tailor portfolio construction to the needs of each client, we adhere to these tenets when building an organization’s portfolio.

Equity Orientation

Meeting a client’s long-term return goal requires a meaningful allocation to equity, history’s highest returning asset class.

Allocation Balance

We use portfolio diversification to control risk and volatility through market cycles.

Active Management

While passive investing is a sensible approach in highly efficient markets, we believe that disciplined active management in areas of market inefficiency can deliver excess returns.

Alternative Investing

Alternative investments are not distinct asset classes, but rather opportunity sets with a high degree of performance variability among managers. We believe alternative strategies provide a greater opportunity for outperformance for those with expansive networks and skill in manager selection.

What we look for in investment managers

As the universe of investment managers has grown over the past few decades, discerning those with durable advantages has become more difficult. We rely on our networks and a disciplined sourcing process to find talented investment managers across asset classes who demonstrate domain expertise, analytical rigor, and a steady temperament. We look to forge long-term partnerships with well-aligned owner-operators, built on a foundation of stewardship.

Our ideal manager is passionate about what they do, with demonstrated skills in sourcing and taking advantage of unique opportunities.

Please reach out for more information.

Recent Insights

All Insights

In Defense of the Endowment Model, Rightly Understood

The first of Deputy CIO Matt Bank’s new series, The Long View, reaffirms GEM’s belief that the Endowment Model – in the right hands, for the right institutions – remains a compelling means of achieving risk-adjusted returns.

GEM Expands Impact Investing Team with Two New Hires

GEM announced the addition of two new investment professionals to its impact investment team: Angelica Nikolausson joined as Managing Director, and Ann Eubank as Senior Associate.

The Returns Horse Race Has Begun — But Does Measuring Up Matter?

As Matt Bank discussed with Institutional Investor, institutions should avoid the comparison game as endowment return season gets underway and focus instead on simply running their own race.

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