The College Record 2022

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