Saint Mary's Hall

Saint Mary's Hall

Founded in 1879, Saint Mary's Hall began under the auspices of the Episcopal Church and has since operated as an independent, coeducational day school serving students from age three through 12th grade. The school moved to its current 60-acre campus on Starcrest Drive in San Antonio, where it runs a liberal-arts curriculum, Montessori lower school, and college-preparatory upper school. The endowment exists to supplement tuition revenue and fund capital projects, faculty development, and financial aid. The endowment portfolio reflects the influence of a board that includes executives with direct investment backgrounds. Randall Mays, Co-Managing Partner of Mays Family Enterprises, and Jason Glast, founder of a residential real estate group, both serve as trustees, according to firm records. While the school does not publicly disclose its asset allocation, the investment strategy documented in Altss research spans buyout, venture capital, growth equity, natural resources, and fund-of-funds commitments — a range more commonly associated with family-office or pension portfolios than with a single independent school. Co-investors and supporters tied to the endowment program include Carlos Alvarez, founder of The Gambrinus Company, and Erin M. Baker, a senior managing director at Guggenheim Partners. The school maintains association memberships through the Independent Schools Association of the Southwest and the National Association of Independent Schools, and its athletic teams compete in the Southwest Preparatory Conference. In late 2024, Saint Mary's Hall concluded a nationwide search and appointed Dr. Avé Luke-Simpson as Head of Middle School, bringing more than two decades of independent-school leadership experience from Headwaters School in Austin, per the firm's own announcement. The endowment functions without a separate external investment office, with oversight provided through the board's finance and investment committees. A genuine structural differentiator is the endowment's ability to lever the alumni and trustee networks typical of an elite Texas K-12 institution to source institutional investment opportunities. Notable alumni including Sardar Biglari, founder and CEO of Biglari Holdings, create a funnel of operator-adjacent capital-formation relationships that few comparably sized endowments can replicate.