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Student Investment Fund

 Who We Are

According to recently-released data, Calgary is growing as an important global financial centre and there is an exciting opportunity right now for the sector to play a key role in the diversification of the province’s economy. To help populate this quietly burgeoning industry with job-ready grads, associate professor of finance Allan Dwyer, PhD, along with faculty colleagues at the Bissett School of Business have been working to develop a new and transformational student experience: The Mount Royal University Student Investment Fund (SIF).
 
Managed by 16 third- and fourth-year students, the SIF offers real-world experience in finance through the careful analysis and trading of conservative investments. For the first half of the two-year program students act as sector analysts, generating investment ideas to pitch to the second-years, who represent the “senior management” of the fund. Students study opportunities in different industries, selecting potential companies after extensive research, while performing analysis based on ethics and compliance with best practices. Ideas must be defended in weekly meetings, where the debate is rigorous, and investment decisions are based on a majority vote by the entire team. 
 
The SIF is housed within the Mount Royal University Foundation and overseen by a senior governing board, which is led by the dean of the Bissett School of Business. The board guides and directs the fund, giving high-level guidance to Dwyer and the students in the SIF. Finance and accounting professionals from across Canada also actively participate in an advisory and mentorship role. The client of the SIF is Mount Royal University.
  
While also providing invaluable experience to students, the initiative from the very beginning has been to grow the SIF to a point where it can give back to Mount Royal University in the form of scholarships and bursaries, research and infrastructure monies, and overall support.
“This is a serious program. The students work with real money and very prudently manage that money for our client, the MRU Board of Governors. The students are preparing themselves for all the risk and all the responsibilities that come with ethically managing other people's investments.”
- Allan Dwyer, PhD, Faculty Advisor of the SIF