Student-Managed Investment Fund

The course offers a learning experience for students in investment portfolio management. Oakland’s Managing Investment Funds course is held in the business school’s Data Analysis Lab, which is equipped with professional-level financial tools including dual-screen Bloomberg financial terminals and a stock market ticker. Seats in the course are limited. Enrollment in the course must be approved. Click the gold Course Requirements text to expand list of requirements.

Students learn security analysis techniques and investment approaches used by professional investors by studying:

• individual equities
• stock market indices
• fixed-income securities
• currencies
• commodities
• futures
• foreign exchange rates

General Approach
Identifying Companies
Each Student Portfolio Manager is assigned to a sector in to identify businesses with a stable or growing, long-term revenue trend. Managers are looking for sound fundamentals and growth potential not fully recognized by the market.

Security Screening
With the help of Bloomberg terminals, managers apply filters consistent with value investing to reduce the number securities. Some filters include: Large and mid-sized market cap, low P/E, conservative debt structure, low price-to-book, high or increasing profit margin and ROE, relatively low analyst coverage.

Investment Policy
Portfolio Management
The Fund manages a broadly diversified portfolio of equity securities by monitoring market value relative to its respective intrinsic values. The Fund seeks to obtain the highest possible total return consistent with risk characteristics similar to its benchmark, the S&P 500.

Eligible Securities
The Fund invests in common stocks trading on the NYSE, AMEX, and NASDAQ. If a security is delisted from a major exchange, it need not be sold immediately, however no more shares may be purchased. The Fund does engage in the purchase or sale of options, futures or any other derivative.

Investment Recommendations
Recommendations formally present to a class advisory board. The board, made up of investment professionals from Kresge and other Detroit-area companies, serve as a sounding board to review, challenge and fine tune the students’ recommended portfolio.

Meet Professor Pratik Kothari

Through the FIN 4360, Managing Investment Funds course, Dr. Pratik Kothari, leads the Oakland student investment management team. Dr. Pratik Kothari recently joined the faculty at the Oakland University and brings over four years of experience in investment management, valuation, and consulting. Most recently, he worked at Cornerstone Research in New York, where he conducted economic and financial analysis for major financial litigations and regulatory proceedings related to market manipulation.

He specializes in investments, performance evaluation, asset pricing, financial markets, and big-data analysis. He has presented his research at major academic and industry conferences, and his papers have been published in leading finance academic journals.

Dr. Kothari holds an undergraduate degree from the Indian Institute of Technology in Roorkee, a masters in finance from the University of Texas at Austin, and a Ph.D. from the University of Missouri.

Dr. Ranadeb Chaudhuri, founder

Through his teaching and research, Oakland University finance professor Ranadeb Chaudhuri, PhD, has made an indelible impact on his students, colleagues and the complex world of finance.

Since joining the faculty of School of Business Administration in 2009, Dr. Chaudhuri has quickly carved out a long list of specialties, including investments, asset pricing, corporate finance, financial markets and investments.

He has presented papers at major conferences, including the 2013 Finance Down Under: Building on the Best from the Cellars of Finance conference at the University of Melbourne in Australia. The conference accepts just 20 papers from a field of 300 applicants each year. Dr. Chaudhuri presented “What a Difference a Ph.D. Makes: More than Three Little Letters,” a study he completed with colleagues Zoran Ivković from Michigan State University, Joshua Pollet from the University of Illinois, and Charles Trzcinka, from Indiana University. The paper examines the way academic qualifications of money managers affect the money management industry. The paper also received the 2013 Talk of the Town Paper award at the conference, an honor given to the conference’s most “buzz-worthy” paper.

Dr. Chaudhuri holds undergraduate and master’s degree in mathematics from the Indian Institute of Technology in Kharagpur, India, and a master’s degree in computational finance from Purdue University. He earned a Ph.D. in finance from Michigan State University

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Experts from top-level finance and investment companies will serve as a sounding board to review, challenge and fine tune the class’ portfolio recommendations. Advisory board members will also supplement the class curriculum by serving as guest lecturers and sharing their personal experiences in the asset management profession.

• Brian Edgar, senior vice president, investments, UBS Financial Services
• Sean Feng, director, investment office, The Kresge Foundation
• John Lesser, president, Plante Moran Financial Advisors
• Chris Liparoto, senior VP, wealth management, Merrill Lynch Wealth Management
• Jason Raznick, CEO, Benzinga
• Phil Serra, first VP, investments, Merrill Lynch Wealth Management

Kresge Vice President and Chief Investment Officer Rob Manilla said Kresge created the student-management investment fund to bolster a talent pipeline of candidates to fill local investment jobs. Manilla holds a bachelor’s degree in finance from OU and is a member of its Board of Visitors.

“The curriculum and hands-on experience offered in this class will better prepare OU graduates for the job market. And by exposing students to a broader range of investment roles, we are optimistic that we will be able to retain our locally-trained talent – who typically head to New York City for their first professional experience – to explore and fill the many rewarding job opportunities that exist within metro Detroit’s public, private and philanthropic sectors.” – Rob Manilla

The Kresge Foundation is a $3.5 billion private, national foundation based in Detroit that works to expand opportunities in cities across the country through grant making and investing in arts and culture, education, environment, health, human services and community development. In 2014, the Kresge's Board of Trustees approved 408 awards totaling $242.5 million.

“Our Investment Office’s creativity to attract students to local careers in asset management, and OU’s ingenuity to craft a curriculum that prepares students for real-life opportunities is a great example of how philanthropic capital can support communities.” – Kresge Foundation President & CEO Rip Rapson