Ed Grefenstette – Bold Allocations at The Dietrich Foundation (EP.437)

Capital Allocators – Inside the Institutional Investment Industry

Ted Seides – Allocator and Asset Management Expert

Investing, Capitalallocation, Business

4.8 • 806 Ratings

🗓️ 24 March 2025

⏱️ 77 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Ed Grefenstette is the CIO of The Dietrich Foundation, which supports charitable organizations in Western Pennsylvania through a truly unique investment strategy that seeks to first, last, and always grow the assets. Bill Dietrich, a successful industrialist, published historian, international investor, and innovative philanthropist, formed the foundation after selling his business for $170 million in 1997. Since then, the pool has grown 11.5x to $1.5 billion after distributing $400 million to supported charities, including contributions that make it among the largest donors every year to Carnegie Mellon University and the University of Pittsburgh. Over the last twenty years, the Dietrich Foundation's performance sits at the very top of all endowments and foundations.

Our conversation covers Ed's journey to investing and mentorship by Bill Dietrich, which led to him taking the helm at the Foundation in 2007. We discuss the Foundation's bold approach to illiquid investments, with 90% of assets invested in venture capital and private equity, its governance structure, and its thematic focus on innovation and emerging markets. Along the way, Ed shares insights into managing liquidity, constructing the portfolio, selecting managers, and navigating geopolitical risk to maintain conviction in an uncomfortably different strategy.

Ed’s approach and results will open your aperture to what’s possible in an institutional portfolio with the right goals, structure, and governance in place.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Capital allocators is brought to you by my friends at WCM Investment Management.
0:07.5	To outperform the markets, you have to do something differently from others.
0:11.9	In my 30-something years investing in managers, there may be no one I've come across who does that as clearly and as well as WCM.
0:20.1	I've seen it up close as an investor in their
0:22.3	international growth strategy for the last five years. WCM is a global equity investment manager
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0:34.7	the influence of Wall Street Groupthink, provides them with the freedom
0:37.9	to live out their investment team's core values, think different, and get better.
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0:48.3	wide moat investing with the concept of moat trajectory, WCM has delivered differentiated returns while building concentrated
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1:26.9	This testimonial is being provided by Ted Sides and capital allocators who have been
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1:41.1	Investing involves risk, including the possible loss of principle.
	...

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