Top totty
Oxford University has net assets that would place it on a par with a small Caribbean island, The Oxford Student can reveal. Oxford is officially wealthier than St Kitts and Nevis, and Dominica, and only slightly worse off than Guinea-Bissau, St Vincent and Grenada. Oxford has net assets of over £2.5 billion, which trumps the overall estimated wealth of both St Kitts and Nevis, at around £2.35 billion, and Dominica, at £2.243 billion.
The university accounts, published last month, have been analysed carefully in terms of incomes, outgoings and returns on investments, but this is the first time anyone has sought to make sense of how much the university is actually worth in terms of net assets. What these assets are, however, is impossible to ascertain, since for reasons of commercial confidentiality, neither individual colleges nor the central university administration will divulge this information.
All the university land agent, Tim del Nevo, will say is that the university has both urban and agricultural holdings is several parts of England. Rumours have always existed about the outrageous wealth in terms of assets that some colleges enjoy. St John’s in particular, as Oxford’s wealthiest college, is said to be one of the biggest landowners in Britain, and rumours persist that you can walk from Oxford to London without leaving St John’s land.
These rumours are impossible to validate, although we do know that St John’s owns most of north Oxford, and was responsible for developing much of that area in the nineteenth century. It also regained ownership of the Lamb and Flag pub on St Giles in 1997, another valuable item in their bulging portfolio of assets.
The size of the money pot on which Oxford is sitting is even more breathtaking when you realise that most college buildings are not even accounted for in the official figures. It is the policy of university and college accountants not to value buildings which those institutions have held for a period of over fifty years, ruling out some of the university’s most famous landmarks.
Only a handful of colleges responded to this paper’s request for their individual accounts for the previous financial year. Of those that did, the top three wealthiest colleges in terms of assets were University, Worcester and Somerville. University valued their net assets at over £81 million; Worcester’s were worth £30.4 million.
When asked if the fact that the university had such potential wealth at its fingertips had any affect on the ongoing pay dispute between university employers and teaching staff, Honorary Secretary of the Oxford Association of University Teachers (AUT) branch, Terry Hoad, said: “There’s obviously a balance to be struck between prudent stewardship of assets and the meeting of current obligations, such as those to the university’s staff.
Oxford AUT wouldn’t want this or other universities to jeopardise their futures unnecessarily. But we think they can make real improvements to salaries without doing that.” What could we do with the money, however? The university could choose to pay John Hood’s expense claims for nearly another 103,000 years (assuming he continues claiming at the rate he does now). It could build another 127 Said Business Schools, and perhaps even an animal lab or two.
Alternatively, perhaps the university account managers, fed up with academic competition, could buy Cambridge University. They would still have enough money to go and buy Trinity College again, should they so wish. One thing, however, Oxford would not be allowed to buy were they to realise its full economic potential would be St Kitts and Nevis.
When asked what the official response would be to such a request from Britain’s oldest university, the UK Deputy High Commissioner said: “I think that would be impossible, as St Kitts and Nevis is a sovereign nation, and we feel there is no price that you can put on a country. We would deny that the country can be valued at £2.3 billion — such a figure does not even come close.
For now, then, it appears that Oxford students will have to be content with the dreary academic hellhole, and shelve any hopes they had of the university cashing in and moving to warmer climes. Mind you, perhaps the thought of selling up and moving to a lush tropical paradise would be too much temptation even for the naturally abstemious John Hood to bear.
25th May 2006