Investment Fund - Pitches
Among the variety of applied learnings I’ve sought at USC, the Student Investment Fund has been the most rewarding. As part of this program, a small group of students manage 5 funds with different mandates of roughly $2 million each from USC’s endowment. I’m a manager of the mid-cap growth fund that managed $2M equity portfolio from USC’s endowment. We achieved $230K (13%) capital appreciation, disbursed $60K in scholarships. The peer reviews, classes, and firm visits have sharpened my competitive analysis, critical reasoning, and rapid research skills more than any strategy class has.
Apart from the regular IC meetings and classes, we also visit asset managers, investment banks, and private equity firms in New York, San Francisco, and Los Angeles. On our New York trek we presented our own fund performance review at VanEck, followed by educational meetings with global asset class heads, CFOs and other leadership from Citi, Blackstone, Apollo Capital, and Macquarie Group. We have also visited TCW, Pathway Capital in LA and Jackson Square Partners, J.P. Morgan Growth Equity Partners and more in San Francisco. These sessions have covered asset classes such as private and public equity, fixed income, liquid credit, real estate, fund of funds as well as macro and industry strategy underlying all of these. Learning about the first principles and higher order thinking that go into such large investment decisions and the sheer volume traded have been humbling.
Personally, I deployed $275K towards 4 companies. Built DCFs, pitched stocks, engaged in bull/bear exercises with other fund managers. Below are some of my pitches with their analysis:
Camtek
Johnson and Johnson
Sprinklr
Published: 9 May 2024