Young investment analysts are generous

Barbara Black

The graduates of one program at Concordia have a 87-per-cent participation rate in fundraising for scholarships despite the fact that they are still in their twenties and thirties. If all Concordia graduates in that age group showed the same generosity, it would enrich the university by millions of dollars.

The willingness of the young alumni of the Kenneth Woods Portfolio Management Program to help current students was noted by Dean Jerry Tomberlin at a reception at the Montreal Amateur Athletic Association on Peel St. for this year’s graduates.

Woods, a successful Vancouver businessman, launched the program in 2000 with a $1-million donation. Each year, the students’ job is to invest that money and see that it grows.

Finance Professor Abraham Brodt, who is the program director, reported, “The Class of 2007 fund managers had an excellent performance in 2006, generating a total return of 13.61 per cent and beating their benchmark by 145 basis points.”

Any profits made are reinvested, and the students’ performance is measured against the performance of a combination of industry indexes, such as the TSE 300 and Standard & Poor’s 500.

The undergraduate students are handpicked for the extracurricular program. They commit themselves to it for two years, with the first-year students watching the second-year students. While they make the investment decisions, they must adhere to guidelines set by a client committee to ensure that they cover a variety of industries and investment instruments.

They meet twice a week each term, and report to the client committee of senior investment professionals every few months. Each student has at least three mentors, with whom he or she meets at least once a quarter. In addition, each student should get two work terms.

The graduating students are referred to as Calvin Potter Fellows. Woods, a 1975 MBA graduate of Concordia, dedicated the program to a former professor and mentor, Calvin Potter, who died in 2000. His widow, Winifred Potter, attended the reception on May 28.

The nine graduates all have jobs lined up in the investment industry; in fact, one of them, Melissa Papanayotou, couldn’t be spared by her employers in Toronto, and had to miss the party. Her fellow graduates expressed their gratitude to their mentors and professors, and to Woods, who always flies in from B.C. for the event.

Another reason for celebration is that Brodt was chosen as the 2007 recipient of the John Molson School of Business Teaching Excellence Award.
One student said, “Professor Brodt is well prepared, organized and dedicated to his students. He teaches with a calm, sincere attitude and has shown an extraordinary commitment to the program. He is the reason that so many of the Kenneth Woods graduates have achieved the success that we have.”

Another said, “I was fascinated by the world of corporate finance as shown to me by Dr. Brodt. It is nothing like I imagined it before: not dull and mind-numbing, but captivating.

“His enthusiasm is infectious. I talked to other students in my class, many said that after having taken this course they decided to choose financial management as their MBA specialization.”

The teaching award will be presented at JMSB convocation on June 19.