Wachovia bank has frozen the accounts of nearly 1,000 colleges, leaving institutions unable to access billions of dollars they depend on for salaries, campus construction, and debt payments.
The freeze, which affects most institutions that invest their endowment income and other assets through Commonfund, has some colleges worried that they won’t be able to make payroll this period, said Verne O. Sedlacek, president and chief executive of Commonfund, which manages investments for nonprofit institutions. Many colleges use the organization’s short-term investment fund for operating expenses, “almost as a checking account,” he said.
As of last Friday, the Common Fund for Short Term Investments managed approximately $9.3-billion in assets for 900 colleges and roughly 100 private schools.
Wachovia, which agreed to sell its banking operations to Citigroup this week, announced on Monday that it was resigning as trustee of the fund and would allow plan participants to withdraw only 10 percent of their assets—the value of the securities that had reached maturity. That percentage grew to 26 percent on Tuesday as additional securities reached maturity, and is expected to reach 57 percent by the end of this year and 74 percent by the end of 2009.