HMC Officials Collect Hefty Salaries in Lackluster Year

Several of Harvard's top money managers received hefty compensation packages in fiscal 1992, a year in which the University's endowment was outperformed by approximately 71 percent of the nation's colleges and universities.

Dave Mittelman, a senior vice president of Harvard Management Company (HMC) and director of its fixed income investments, earned $1,237,874 in salary and bonuses, according to information the company filed with the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) yesterday.

The amount--nearly double the $682,000 Mittelman was paid the previous year--makes him the company's highest paid official for the second year in a row and the second highest paid in its history.

Another HMC vice president Jon Jacobson, who manages the company's equity portfolio, placed a distant second behind Mittelman in compensation, collecting $770,814 in fiscal 1992. Jacobson earned $425,000 the previous year.

HMC President Jack R. Meyer was the company's third highest paid official. His earnings of $739,000 marked an increase of nearly 29 percent over the $575,000 he was paid in fiscal 1991.

The steep salaries come in a year when the management company was outperformed by most of the nation's colleges and universities, and follow several years of low returns. HMC earned a return of 11.8 percent on the University's $5.1 billion endowment last year.

That return, while a significant improvement over the previous year's dismal 1.1 percent rate, still put the company well below the average return of 13.1 percent for universities nationwide, as reported by the National Association of College and University Business Officers.

Harvard has performed below the national average for university endowments since 1989. At least 30 percent of the nation's universities have outperformed Harvard since 1987--the last year for which records are kept by Wurts, Johnson and Associates, a Seattle-based investment performance consulting firm.

The high compensation and low returns have drawn growing criticism of HMC by several Harvard alumni, themselves successful investment managers.

In addition, members of Harvard's Faculty Council met with Meyer earlier this year to discuss HMC's performance and compensation structure.

Informed of the latest salary figures last night, one source on the council, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, said large compensation increases were not consistent with what Meyer had detailed at the meeting.

"What he described at the council sounded like a system that would certainly protect them against any kind of disaster and give them quite a bit more if they did well and not more if they didn't do well," said the source.

Still, the source said Faculty Council members were more concerned about the endowment's performance than with the salaries paid to its top managers.

Meyer himself has said that he is pleased with the company's performance in fiscal 1992.

The HMC president restructured the company's compensation system in 1990. Several observers had said the old system allowed the company's employees to earn large bonuses based on unrealized gains.

In fiscal 1989, HMC officials Scott M. Sperling and Michael Eisenson, managing partners of the company's high-risk Aeneas Group, became the first HMC employees to clear the million dollar mark, earning $1,018,697.66 each. Two years later, the Aeneas portfolio was marked down by nearly $200 million, more than 20 percent of its total worth.

In 1990, Meyer's predecessor, Walter M. Cabot '54, earned a retirement bonus that made him the highest paid employee in HMC history, with a total compensation of more than $1.4 million for the year.

According to documents filed with the IRS, the company's Incentive Compensation Plan, implemented in fiscal 1991, "provides for incentive payouts based on the returns of specific asset classes managed by employees relative to a specified benchmark."

"Certain amounts earned under this plan are deferred from payment in the year earned and are subject to drawback, based on the relative return of the asset pool in the subsequent year," according to the documents.

Meyer also changed the standard against which the company measures its performance from a conventional "vanilla portfolio" of stocks and bonds to a new system of internal benchmarks based on the estimated performance of HMC"s asset allocation schedule.

Critics have said the move makes it easier for HMC to appear to outperform the market when in fact it is not.

According to HMC's annual report, the company's fiscal 1992 performance exceeded its benchmarks in every category except for commodity-based assets.

Other Top Earners

In addition to Mittelman, Jacobson and Meyer, HMC Vice President Timothy Peterson also cleared half a million dollars in fiscal 1992. Peterson, who manages the company's high-yield portfolio, earned $547,373, compared with the $400,666 he was compensated in fiscal 1991.

Sperling and Eisenson, who had not been listed at the top of the company's salary disclosure forms since fiscal 1989, each earned $473,500.

Officials of the management company could not be reached for comment last night.

David B. Lat contributed to the reporting of this story.

"What he described at the council sounded like a system that would certainly protect them against any kind of disaster and give them quite a bit more if they did well and not more if they didn't do well," said the source.

Still, the source said Faculty Council members were more concerned about the endowment's performance than with the salaries paid to its top managers.

Meyer himself has said that he is pleased with the company's performance in fiscal 1992.

The HMC president restructured the company's compensation system in 1990. Several observers had said the old system allowed the company's employees to earn large bonuses based on unrealized gains.

In fiscal 1989, HMC officials Scott M. Sperling and Michael Eisenson, managing partners of the company's high-risk Aeneas Group, became the first HMC employees to clear the million dollar mark, earning $1,018,697.66 each. Two years later, the Aeneas portfolio was marked down by nearly $200 million, more than 20 percent of its total worth.

In 1990, Meyer's predecessor, Walter M. Cabot '54, earned a retirement bonus that made him the highest paid employee in HMC history, with a total compensation of more than $1.4 million for the year.

According to documents filed with the IRS, the company's Incentive Compensation Plan, implemented in fiscal 1991, "provides for incentive payouts based on the returns of specific asset classes managed by employees relative to a specified benchmark."

"Certain amounts earned under this plan are deferred from payment in the year earned and are subject to drawback, based on the relative return of the asset pool in the subsequent year," according to the documents.

Meyer also changed the standard against which the company measures its performance from a conventional "vanilla portfolio" of stocks and bonds to a new system of internal benchmarks based on the estimated performance of HMC"s asset allocation schedule.

Critics have said the move makes it easier for HMC to appear to outperform the market when in fact it is not.

According to HMC's annual report, the company's fiscal 1992 performance exceeded its benchmarks in every category except for commodity-based assets.

Other Top Earners

In addition to Mittelman, Jacobson and Meyer, HMC Vice President Timothy Peterson also cleared half a million dollars in fiscal 1992. Peterson, who manages the company's high-yield portfolio, earned $547,373, compared with the $400,666 he was compensated in fiscal 1991.

Sperling and Eisenson, who had not been listed at the top of the company's salary disclosure forms since fiscal 1989, each earned $473,500.

Officials of the management company could not be reached for comment last night.

David B. Lat contributed to the reporting of this story.