The College Record 2022
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Reports and <strong>College</strong> Activities<br />
It all costs money, of course, and that is the main thing that that the Bursar thinks<br />
about. On this front, it must be said that the <strong>College</strong>’s endowment has endured<br />
some quite challenging years. As I have outlined in previous reports, the impact of<br />
the pandemic on rent collection from commercial properties has been considerable,<br />
and in <strong>2022</strong> the difficulties experienced by most stock markets have also taken a<br />
small toll on the <strong>College</strong>’s wealth. <strong>The</strong> <strong>College</strong> is very underweight in the US market<br />
so we have been shielded to some extent from the deflation of the technology<br />
market, but most other markets have also seen losses in light of the more febrile<br />
financial climate (and of course geopolitical events). A bright spot on an otherwise<br />
bleak horizon has been the <strong>College</strong>’s agricultural land, where the painstakingly slow<br />
process of bringing forward farmland for residential development has moved us<br />
much closer to the point at which we will receive some substantial and long-awaited<br />
receipts. Indeed, the overall total investment return in 2021–22 was around 3.4%,<br />
which comprises small losses on commercial properties and equities, offset by a<br />
significant revaluation of land outside Coventry which we plan to sell for residential<br />
development in the near future. In more normal times this would be only a modest<br />
return, but given the wider challenges (and the performance of many benchmarks)<br />
we feel it was a pretty successful year, and our longstanding policy of diversifying<br />
equity risk via agricultural land holdings has demonstrated its value.<br />
View from the New Lodge<br />
into the Cloisters<br />
Credit: Grace Finlay<br />
36 <strong>The</strong> Queen’s <strong>College</strong> | <strong>College</strong> <strong>Record</strong> <strong>2022</strong>