(ZeroHedge) Harvard University's endowment (valued at $39 billion as of 2018) is the largest academic endowment in the world. The private investment company has been quietly snapping up farmland and related water rights to properties located in the California region.
Instead of purchasing the land in Harvard Management Company, Inc.'s own name, asset managers secretly formed a wholly owned subsidiary - called Brodiaea, which was the vehicle to purchase more than a dozen investments in California vineyards over the last six years.
Harvard formed Brodiaea in 2012, and by 2015 the company had already acquired 10,000 acres in Santa Barbara and San Luis Obispo counties for roughly $60 million, according to Reuters.