University of Michigan Ordered to Explain Endowment's CIO Pay

(Bloomberg) -- The University of Michigan improperly withheld information about how it determines compensation for the chief investment officer of its $11 billion endowment, a state judge ruled, according to The Detroit Free Press.

The Free Press said it filed an open-records lawsuit in November requesting the methodology, which the school denied. The chief judge for the state’s court of claims this week rejected the school’s argument that its compensation formula was a “trade secret,” the paper reported on Friday.

Endowment investing chiefs are among the most highly compensated at the richest universities, sometimes paid more than the president. Congress has noticed, and last year added an excise tax on the compensation of leaders of nonprofit organizations who make more than $1 million annually. At universities, those leaders can range from coaches to the endowment CIO.

Rick Fitzgerald, a university spokesman, said Friday that the school is reviewing the ruling.

Erik Lundberg has been the University of Michigan’s CIO since 1999, and was compensated more than $2 million in 2016, according to the school. The newspaper sought to understand how he was paid at the university, which is the third richest U.S. public school.

To contact the reporter on this story: Janet Lorin in New York at jlorin@bloomberg.net.

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Margaret Collins at mcollins45@bloomberg.net, Mary Romano, Vincent Bielski

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