ACEF Is Transparent and Accountable
The investment objective of ACEF is to help mitigate risk as well as increase returns through time to support stable and growing income distributions from each individual endowment fund to its designated beneficiary, while preserving and enhancing the principal balance of each endowment fund. ACEF seeks to accomplish this objective by aggregating the individual endowment funds and investing them collectively in a broadly diversified portfolio managed by institutional quality investment managers.
The ACEF Board of Directors makes all investment decisions following the review of our independent, institutional quality investment advisors’ recommendations. Our advisors are paid a yearly fee for investing ACEF’s funds in a broadly diversified portfolio to meet our financial objectives. Furthermore, strict regulations and policies ensure that each endowment that is established with us is accounted for separately.
ACEF investments are also subject to a full independent audit every year, ensuring that each of its thousands of individual endowments is properly managed and documented. This audit, our IRS Form 990, and our investment strategies are always available for review, and an annual fund report is sent to the guardian of each endowment. ACEF is also willing to share its investment principles and strategies with parishes that choose to invest elsewhere.
As a reminder, ACEF is completely independent of the Eastern Diocese of the Armenian Church of America.
ACEF keeps its expenses to a minimum. Our annual expenses are approximately 0.6% of the fund’s value, half of which is allocated to our outside investment advisor.