July 30, 2012

By Blaine Rollins, CFA, Managing Director, of 361 Capital

Thanks to a sluggish economy and unstable financial markets, the Nobel Foundation is being forced to tighten its belt a bit, announcing Monday it would pare down cash prizes awarded to Nobel Prize winners. The foundation, which awards the prestigious Nobel Prize in numerous academic fields and for humanitarian work, will slash prize winnings by 20.0% to around $1.1 million, the Associated Press reported, the first time the organization has done so since 1949. Prize winnings, awarded in Swedish Kronor, were the equivalent of about $1.4 million last year. The organization cited concerns about maintaining adequate funds in the long term for the pullback in prize winnings, saying returns on the foundation's investments had fallen short of operating expenses in recent years. The foundation's investments, which totaled about $419 million as of the end of last year, were down 8.0% year-over-year, according to analysis by Catherine Rampell of the New York Times.

Source: This was excerpted from US News via 361 Capital's 361 Capital Weekly Research Briefing, June 18, 2012 publication, http://361capital.com.

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