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Ackman criticizes Harvard's financial management and

investment

policies

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Trump admin freezes future grants to Harvard

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Ackman says Harvard's tax exemptions at risk due to

mismanagement

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He suggests faculty and students could relocate

By Svea Herbst-Bayliss

BEVERLY HILLS, May 6 (Reuters) - Billionaire investor

Bill Ackman on Tuesday said Harvard University, one of the

nation's oldest and wealthiest, should not be entitled to

taxpayer funds when the school wastes money on what he calls

"administrative bloat."

Ackman, who earned undergraduate and business degrees from

Harvard more than three decades ago, was speaking hours after

the Trump administration said it was freezing future grants to

Harvard.

He also criticized the school's investment policies, saying

the Ivy League university is facing a financial crisis and that

its $53 billion endowment is "poorly invested."

"They have lost all future grants, their tax exemptions are

at risk," Ackman said on a panel at the Milken Institute Global

Conference where 5,000 financiers, educators and scientists

gather to discuss critical issues of the day.

"It is all self-induced gross mismanagement and I think that

the (Trump) administration is doing precisely the right thing

now," Ackman told the packed room.

The U.S. Department of Education informed Harvard on Monday

that it was freezing billions of dollars in future research

grants and other aid until the university concedes to a number

of demands from the Trump administration, a senior department

official said.

Harvard responded that the administration letter doubles

down on demands that would impose "unprecedented and improper

control" over the university and makes new threats to

"illegally" withhold funding for lifesaving research.

"The notion is the federal government money is only going to

fund breakthrough research, that is just false," Ackman said.

A representative for the university was not immediately

available for comment and a representative for Harvard

Management Company, which invests the endowment, declined to

comment.

Ackman has long been at odds with Harvard, criticizing the

university for not doing enough to protect students from

antisemitism. Early last year he launched an unsuccessful bid to

get four candidates on the ballot for a governing board.

The financier runs New York-based hedge fund firm Pershing

Square Capital Management and has been a vocal supporter of

Trump's policies on tariffs and spending. Harvard is "a

collection of buildings, nice real estate" located in Cambridge,

Massachusetts next to the Charles River, he said.

But its cutting-edge faculty, researchers and students could

easily move elsewhere, he said. "This is the best time in

history to start a university."

He also again hit out at the school's governing board,

saying it has become insular and that there is no mechanism to

remove members the way there is in corporate America where

investors can run board challenges.

"What happens when you have a board that can self-appoint

itself, and it becomes insular, and with a $53 billion

endowment, they think, okay, we can just do whatever is on our

mind."