Jack Meyer, head of Harvard University's $22.5bn (€17.2bn) endowment fund, the largest in the US, has resigned to run his own investment firm and is taking four senior colleagues with him.

David Mittelman and Maurice Samuels, Edward DeNoble and Michael Pradko will join Meyer who has come under fire for the excessive pay of his team. At least two of them received annual packages of over $20m.