Utah School & Institutional Trust Fund (SITFO)

Peter Madsen has served as Director and Chief Investment Officer since 2015, overseeing the internal investment team based in Salt Lake City. Investment policy and strategic asset allocation are set by the board of trustees, chaired by Utah State Treasurer Marlo Oaks, with Vice Chair Bong Choi, former CIO of FJ Management, providing additional institutional investment expertise. The board approves all major asset-class commitments and strategy shifts.

SITFO's inflows derive from revenue generated by 3.4 million acres of Utah trust lands managed by the School and Institutional Trust Lands Administration (SITLA), a separate state agency. That revenue comes from mineral and energy royalties, surface leases for grazing and agriculture, and real property sales and development — not from appropriations, taxes, or annual charitable contributions. SITLA deposits net proceeds into the permanent fund, which SITFO invests.

Neither — SITFO operates as a permanent sovereign wealth fund under Utah state law, with a constitutional mandate to benefit public schools and designated state institutions. Unlike a pension fund, it carries no defined-benefit liabilities. Unlike most endowments, its inflows do not depend on donor contributions; they flow from land-based resource revenue. The corpus is permanent, with only investment earnings distributed.

SITFO uses a hybrid model, investing through both external fund managers and direct holdings. Its portfolios include direct commercial real estate, public equity and fixed-income securities managed internally or via mandates, and commitments to private real estate, private income, and private real-assets funds. The systematic convexity portfolio — a tail-risk hedging strategy — is also managed via external relationships.

SITLA is the land-management agency that administers Utah's 3.4 million acres of school and institutional trust lands, generating revenue through mineral leasing, energy extraction, surface use agreements, and real property development. SITFO is the separate investment entity that receives those net revenues and deploys them into the permanent fund portfolio. The two entities operate independently, but SITFO's long-term inflows are entirely dependent on SITLA's stewardship of the underlying physical assets.

SITFO's board has authorized exploration of digital asset exposure as part of the fund's broader portfolio diversification efforts. This authorization does not represent a guaranteed allocation, but rather enables the investment team to evaluate and potentially commit to digital-asset strategies within the fund's risk parameters and existing governance framework.

SITFO's private-market exposure spans multiple asset classes rather than focusing on a single stage or strategy. The fund commits to private real estate, private income and credit strategies, private real assets including infrastructure, and buyout-oriented private equity. The portfolio does not target venture capital or early-stage technology as a discrete allocation but maintains flexibility to participate in buyout and growth-equity opportunities through existing relationships.