UW College of Business Students Closer to Securing Investment Funds |
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Dec. 15, 2005 -- Six University of Wyoming College of Business students are one step closer to managing $1 million in permanent state funds.
Students in Professor Walt Werner's portfolio management program today (Thursday) presented a proposal at the Wyoming State Capitol. They asked the five state elected officials of the State Loan and Investment Board (SLIB) for $500,000 to begin the project in the spring semester and for an additional $500,000 next December -- contingent upon satisfactory performance.
SLIB member State Treasurer Cynthia Lummis recommended that her office work with the student group and UW officials to draft a contract for a limited partnership. She then will ask Attorney General Pat Crank to approve that contract. All board members, including Gov. Dave Freudenthal, agreed with Lummis' proposal. Lummis is confident that the students' request will be approved when they appear before the board again early next year.
The money will come from the university's permanent land fund for which the SLIB is responsible.
"The purpose of this presentation is to request to the board our ability to manage permanent funds for the state," UW MBA graduate student Bridgette Fowler, Buffalo, told the board. "We are College of Business majors with career interests in the investment management field. The class provides many great opportunities and benefits to us as students and as future graduates entering the job market. The hands-on experience allows us the opportunity to take what we have learned in our traditional undergraduate classes and apply it to real-world situations."
The UW portfolio management program is a new undergraduate class that allows students to participate in making real-life investment decisions, Werner says. Others in the class are seniors Corey Bramlet, economics and finance, Wheatland; Charles Christensen, finance and accounting, Cody; Abby Norman, finance, Rock Springs; Eric Patton, finance, Hanna; and Emerald Reid, accounting and finance, Cheyenne.
"This is an investment in the future of Wyoming as much as anything else; the future that we as students represent," Christensen told the panel. "We are asking the state to provide the portfolio management program at the University of Wyoming the ability to compete with other similar programs, the ability to attract top-notch business students, the ability to provide students with an education that cannot be obtained in a typical classroom setting and the ability to provide a nexus to future business growing in the state."
The investment class hopes to compete with other universities nationwide. More than 1,000 students, representing nearly 150 colleges in the United States and six foreign countries, take part in similar programs.
The class has a current investment portfolio, started with an investment of $150,000 from the UW Foundation, that is consistent with a low-risk, well-diversified, long-term strategy portfolio. The students have invested approximately $100,000, with 60 percent of the money invested in energy-related companies, Reid told board members.
All of the state elected officials personally congratulated the students on their presentation.
Photo:
Investment Team -- Three members of a University of Wyoming College of Business portfolio management program, from left, Abby Norman, Rock Springs, Emerald Reid, Cheyenne, and Corey Bramlet, Wheatland, meet with State Treasurer Cynthia Lummis at the Wyoming State Capitol in Cheyenne Thursday. The six-member class presented a proposal to the State Loan and Investment Board to manage $1 million in permanent state funds.
Posted on Thursday, December 15, 2005
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