By R.G. Ratcliff and Jeannie Kever
Fearing unstable international financial markets and the possibility of high inflation, Texas’ higher education investment managers have bought more than $500 million in gold.
The gold purchases represent only 3 percent of the University of Texas Investment Management Co.’s $22.3 billion in investment funds, but it indicates how deeply the fund managers are concerned about the global financial future.
With the state’s endowment funds designed to generate a 5.1 percent distribution each year to the University of Texas and Texas A&M University, it is rare for the investment managers to put large sums of money into a commodity whose value usually only grows through inflation.