- MacDonald to take position as Rutgers investment director
- MacDonald oversaw NJ’s private markets portfolio since 2011
- PE portfolio expanded by 40 pct under his watch
New Jersey Division of Investment private equity chief Jason MacDonald is leaving the state’s treasury department to be the first investment director of Rutgers University’s $1 billion endowment.
MacDonald joined the New Jersey Division in 2007 and was eventually tapped to lead the public pension’s private markets portfolio in 2011. In that role, he oversaw a 40 percent expansion in New Jersey’s PE holdings, to some $7.7 billion.
MacDonald, a Rutgers graduate, will take over at the university July 20, according to a report from Chief Investment Officer. The New Jersey Division of Investment has yet to name a successor, Director Chris McDonough said in an email.
“I will be working with Jason and the team to develop a plan to ensure the alternatives program continues to be managed in the thorough and robust fashion as it has been under Jason’s leadership,” he wrote.
MacDonald and Rutgers’s investment office did not respond to requests for comment.
Rutgers has committed a little less than $300 million across 62 alternative-asset funds, including real estate and hedge fund investments, as of June 30, 2015, according to its most recent annual report. The endowment is currently valued at about $1 billion.
Action Item: Rutgers’s investment website: http://treasury.rutgers.edu
Photo: A member of the media takes a photo from an upper level of the main rotunda of the State Capitol building before New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie gives a news conference in Trenton on January 9, 2014. Photo courtesy Reuters/Carlo Allegri