Stockholm (HedgeNordic) – Aalto University’s endowment fund in Finland has appointed Lauri Ehanti as its new Head of Investments, filling the vacancy left by Iivo Paukkeri. Ehanti, who has over 13 years of experience at the endowment fund in various roles, officially assumed the position at the beginning of this year. He replaces Paukkeri, who stepped down to join the family investment company of Finland’s wealthiest individual, Antti Herlin, and his children.
As Head of Investments, Ehanti will manage the university’s investment portfolio, which includes overseeing the planning and execution of its investment strategy, selecting and managing external managers, and leading the internal investment team. He will also be responsible for risk management, internal controls, and reporting to the Aalto University Board on portfolio performance. Additionally, Ehanti will work closely with the university’s external advisory Investment Committee.
Ehanti’s prior experience includes portfolio management at Aalto University’s endowment, where his key responsibilities encompassed external manager selection, asset allocation, and investment strategy. He most recently served as Senior Portfolio Manager and Deputy Head of Investments, having spent around 13 and a half years with the endowment fund in various roles. Before joining Aalto, Ehanti held risk management roles at OP Financial Group.
“Happy to take the lead of our great investment team and continue to build on the rock solid foundations we have built over the years.”
Lauri Ehanti
“Happy to take the lead of our great investment team and continue to build on the rock solid foundations we have built over the years,” Lauri Ehanti shares on LinkedIn. “We will keep working hard to generate stable and predictable funding to the university, through the cycles.”
The primary purpose of Aalto University’s endowment is to generate annual funding to support the university’s strategic goals and advance high-quality education, research, and innovation. Ehanti will oversee the university’s €1.5 billion endowment fund, which is built around several risk-based building blocks, including interest rate risk, credit risk, equity risk, and alternative risk. The “alternative risk” component includes market-neutral strategies such as trend-following, systematic risk premia, equity market-neutral, global macro, relative value, and arbitrage strategies, among others.
As of mid-2024, 18.2 percent of the endowment’s portfolio was allocated to alternative risk. This segment delivered returns of 11.1 percent in 2022, 2.2 percent in 2023, and 5.5 percent in the first half of 2024, generating an annualized return of 2.7 percent from mid-2010 through mid-2024. Overall, the university’s endowment portfolio achieved an annualized return of 5.9 percent from mid-2010 to June 2024.
