NASHVILLE, Tenn. ñ William T. Spitz, vice chancellor for investments and treasurer at Vanderbilt University, has been named the recipient of the 2005 Award for Investment Leadership given by the investment firm Hirtle, Callaghan & Co.
The award, announced at the firm‘s 11th Annual Investment Policy Roundtable, recognizes investment practitioners who have consistently demonstrated exemplary investment management performance and unwavering professional ethics. Nominated by their peers, candidates are judged on integrity, dedication, wisdom, balance, leadership and investment success.
Spitz has directed that the $50,000 cash prize that accompanies the distinction be granted to the Owen Graduate School of Management at Vanderbilt, where, as a clinical professor, he teaches a course in securities analysis. The money is to be used to fund independent capital markets research.
“We are delighted to confer the 2005 Hirtle Callaghan Award for Investment Leadership on Bill Spitz,” said John Hirtle, principal of the Pennsylvania-based firm, which has $9 billion under management. “Bill‘s consistent, unerring investment judgment and steadfast integrity embody the spirit of this award, as does his track record as an exceptional steward of Vanderbilt University‘s endowment.”
On receiving the award, Spitz said, “In the investment business, you are typically only as good as your performance for the last quarter. Therefore, I am delighted to receive recognition for 30 years of hard work.”
Since assuming responsibility for Vanderbilt University‘s endowment in 1985, Spitz has increased its assets to $2.5 billion from $300 million, placing it in the top quartile of endowments for the last 5- and 10-year periods. Citing his “superior foresight,” Hirtle Callaghan recognized Spitz for changing the portfolio‘s traditional blend of domestic equities and fixed income to a more diversified mix of foreign equities, private equity, real estate and market-neutral strategies.
Hirtle added, “I‘m sure many of our firm‘s peers in the investment community as well as Bill‘s colleagues share our deep respect for him as an investment professional. While the performance record of Vanderbilt University‘s endowment speaks for itself, many in the investment world are probably unaware of Bill‘s unwavering ethical standards as a steward of the university‘s endowment and, ultimately, much of its future. In an era rife with scandal, we hope our recognition of Bill will serve as a beacon for sound stewardship in the investment industry. His honesty, as well as wisdom, dedication, prudence, progressive thinking and investment expertise, are what every investment professional should strive for as client fiduciaries.”
The Owen School has earmarked the $50,000 award for its Financial Markets Research Center. The center, founded in 1987, fosters research in financial markets by identifying research issues, maintaining research data bases, funding faculty research, holding conferences and stimulating interaction among researchers, regulators and industry leaders.
Hans Stoll, director of the center and the Anne Marie and Thomas B. Walker Professor of Finance at the Owen School, said, “The $50,000 contribution will help us meet the center‘s objectives and, more specifically, will be used to help support summer research by a Hirtle Callaghan Summer Scholar and to support a conference in the spring of 2006 on conflicts of interest in finance.”
Stoll said the conference will bring together academic researchers, regulators and industry leaders and will focus on the effects of conflicts of interest in financial markets and in corporations and how best to deal with them.
“We are delighted that Bill Spitz has been recognized in this way. He clearly deserves this award, and we are fortunate in being the beneficiaries of his accomplishments,” Stoll added.
Outside his work at the university, Spitz is a founder and director of the Diversified Trust Company and serves on the advisory committees of several investment funds, including the Acadia Realty Acquisition Fund, Charles River Ventures, Heartwood Forestland Fund and ZN Mexico Trust. He is the author of numerous articles in financial publications and several books, including Get Rich Slowly: Building Your Financial Future Through Common Sense.
Between 1997 and 2000, Spitz served as chairman of the Common Fund, an appointment given to those held in the highest regard by their peers in the endowment sector of the financial community. He holds a bachelor‘s degree from Vanderbilt and an M.B.A. from the University of Chicago, where he was a Leon Carroll Marshall Scholar. He is a chartered financial analyst and the 1993 recipient of the National Association of College and University Business Officers‘ Rodney H. Adams Award, which recognizes significant contributions to the field of endowment management.
Media contact: Susanne Hicks, (615) 322-NEWS
Susanne.hicks@vanderbilt.edu