The country’s largest endowment decided to implement steps to spin off its real estate investment team, transferring the unit away from Harvard Management to an external manager.

Harvard Management oversees Harvard University’s $35.7B endowment and the company’s newest CEO, N.P. Narvekar, took over last month and triggered the change, which will lay off half of Harvard Management’s staff while spinning off the real estate investment team, CoStar reports. Narvekar led Columbia University’s investment efforts and delivered 10.1% annualized returns during his tenure, a stark comparison to Harvard’s return of negative 2% over the last fiscal year.

Despite its poor performance overall, Harvard’s real estate portfolio is its strongest asset class and generated a 13.8% return last year. Narvekar said the team responsible for Harvard’s real estate portfolio will be entirely spun off by the end of this year. [CoStar]