# Wyoming Excellence in Higher Education Endowment Fund Wyoming Excellence in Higher Education Endowment Fund is a Sovereign Wealth Fund based in Cheyenne, United States. ## Overview - **Organization type:** Sovereign Wealth Fund - **Headquarters:** Cheyenne, United States - **Region:** North America - **Address:** Cheyenne, WY, United States - **Founded:** 2006 - **Assets under management:** Undisclosed ## Regulatory record - **Reports private funds:** No ## About The Wyoming Excellence in Higher Education Endowment Fund was created by the state legislature in 2006 as a permanent trust for Wyoming's public university and community colleges. The corpus is built from severance taxes on coal, oil, and natural gas — a direct conversion of depleting natural resources into an intergenerational educational asset. Before returning to the Treasurer's office, the founding legislation was championed by state leaders who viewed it as a necessary hedge against boom-and-bust commodity cycles. The State Treasurer, currently Curtis E. Meier, Jr., serves as the executive steward alongside the five-member State Loan and Investment Board, which includes the Governor and other elected officials. The fund deploys capital across a diversified multi-asset portfolio with meaningful allocations to global public equities, fixed income, real estate, and alternative investments. The strategy increasingly favors direct real assets and private capital, with holdings that have included commercial real estate properties managed through the Treasurer's real estate investment program. Karl Cheng, who succeeded longtime CIO Patrick Fleming in February 2026, now leads a team that sources co-investments and fund commitments across private equity, private credit, and real estate — a posture shaped by an advisory Investment Funds Committee of external professionals. February 2026: Karl Cheng formally assumed the Chief Investment Officer role following Pat Fleming's retirement in mid-2025. The transition reflects a methodical succession in the Treasurer's office, with Cheng inheriting a fund that distributes roughly two-thirds of its annual spendable earnings to the University of Wyoming. The remainder supports Wyoming's community colleges. The fund operates alongside the WSTO Real Estate Portfolio and the Wyoming Excellence Chairs program, both anchored in Laramie and designed to attract and retain senior faculty talent. Unlike most U.S. public higher-education endowments, the Excellence Fund is constitutionally isolated from annual legislative budgeting fights — its corpus cannot be appropriated for shortfalls. This separation creates a genuine permanent capital structure, paired with state-level oversight that often results in more conservative liquidity management than a private university endowment of comparable size. ## Sectors - Real Estate - Hedge Funds - Private Credit - Private Equity ## People - Curtis E. Meier, Jr. — Wyoming State Treasurer - Karl Cheng — Chief Investment Officer, Wyoming State Treasurer's Office - Patrick Fleming — Former Chief Investment Officer, retired June 2025 ## Questions ### Who makes investment decisions for the Wyoming Excellence in Higher Education Endowment Fund? The State Loan and Investment Board (SLIB), composed of Wyoming's Governor, State Treasurer, State Auditor, and Secretary of State, sets investment policy and asset allocation. Day-to-day portfolio management is executed by the Chief Investment Officer within the Wyoming State Treasurer's Office — a role held by Karl Cheng since February 2026, succeeding the retiring Pat Fleming. An advisory Investment Funds Committee provides external professional counsel on fund selection and co-investment opportunities. ### Where does the fund's capital originate, and is it permanent or subject to legislative reallocation? The fund's corpus is built exclusively from a portion of Wyoming's severance tax revenues on coal, oil, and natural gas extraction. These deposits are constitutionally directed and cannot be redirected by the legislature for general budget purposes. Only investment earnings are spent, with roughly two-thirds of those annual distributions flowing to the University of Wyoming and the remainder to the state's community colleges. ### How is the fund's governance structured differently from a typical university endowment? Unlike endowments governed by a university's board of trustees, the Excellence Fund is an independent state trust managed by the Wyoming State Treasurer's Office under the direction of the elected State Loan and Investment Board. The University of Wyoming is the primary beneficiary but exercises no direct investment governance authority — a structural separation designed to shield the corpus from institutional budgetary pressures. ### What asset classes does the fund invest in, and does it co-invest directly? The fund maintains a diversified portfolio spanning global equities, fixed income, commercial real estate, and private market alternatives. Through the Treasurer's real estate program and the Investment Funds Committee, it engages in direct real asset acquisitions and private fund commitments, including private equity and private credit vehicles. Co-investment alongside external managers is an established component of the private markets strategy. ### What relationship does the fund maintain with the University of Wyoming beyond distributing earnings? Beyond the annual distribution of spendable earnings, the fund is connected to the university through the Wyoming Excellence Chairs program, which provides endowed faculty positions in Laramie. The University of Wyoming Foundation operates as a related philanthropic entity, though the endowment itself is legally separate and managed entirely from Cheyenne. ## Related profiles - [Wyoming Common School Permanent Land Fund](https://altss.com/profile/wyoming-common-school-permanent-land-fund) - [Wyoming Hathaway Scholarship Endowment Fund](https://altss.com/profile/wyoming-hathaway-scholarship-endowment-fund) --- Last updated: 2026-06-03T20:00:00.000Z Canonical page: https://altss.com/profile/wyoming-excellence-in-higher-education-endowment-fund Maintained by Altss — https://altss.com — methodology: https://altss.com/methodology