This semester, the Business and Finance Society at NYU Abu Dhabi launched the Student Investment Fund, an initiative of mentorship and learning for students who aspire to a career in finance. The Student Investment Fund or SIF is the first of its kind in the Middle East and Africa, according to the BFS’ research, as it is completely led by students.

SIF is a semester-long program that seeks to teach students practical knowledge of finance and investment research that they can employ in their internships and future careers. Ten equity research analysts were selected from a pool of more than twenty applicants. Those selected are then paired with a mentor from the senior class who has taken advanced finance courses at NYU’s Stern School of Business. With guidance from their mentors, each analyst will research a chosen stock in the market and deliver an equity research report at the end of the semester.

Mentors deliver five workshops covering topics on investment research to equip analysts with the tools to complete their reports. Participants are also given weekly homework assignments to develop their skills. At the end of the research period, they will each publish their findings and come together to establish a virtual portfolio of stocks to be held for a year, which will be released on the Investment Pitch Day, tentatively scheduled for April 23. On that day, student analysts will present their investment ideas to a panel formed mostly by mentors, who will proceed to vote on which stocks to include in the portfolio. Though they will not be able to purchase their stocks, they will continuously track their progress and all their research reports will be available online.

Though the SIF is making its debut on Saadiyat, student investment funds have been an integral part of finance and business programs in European and American universities. Traditionally, students are given a pool of money from the school’s endowment to invest and manage under the guidance of professors and industry experts to make a return on real money. These funds provide an opportunity to gain real world experience in buying and selling and connect classroom theory with practical application.

The SIF at NYUAD is different from those at other Western universities as they cannot actually invest in stocks. The university doesn’t have an endowment that students can take funds from and experiment with. It would also be difficult for them to use their own money as they are not officially registered as a company – the primary way they could be granted access to funds.

Hind Ait Mout, Class of 2021 and Co-President of the BFS, pointed out that NYUAD students were at a disadvantage when applying for finance related internships as the courses on campus are very theoretical and students do not get to take more advanced electives from Stern until their junior year, which is fairly late compared to their undergraduate peers.

“This opportunity will give them the knowledge that they need for the interviews, but also it would give them a great stamp to have on their CV … because it is definitely impressive to be able to produce an equity research report and be familiar with all the process,” said Ait Mout. She noted that most analysts in the program are sophomores and as such will get a leg up in applying for internships in their junior fall.

Another objective of the SIF is to make finance accessible to students from majors other than Economics. “One of our students is actually a mechanical engineer who’s interested in finance and she’s doing [this program] and we want to see more diversity because that’s what’s really going on in the industry. You can be a [literature] major, you can be a creative writing major, you can be a computer science major and go into finance,” Ait Mout emphasized. “You just have to prepare for interviews, you have to have the knowledge you need and then you can go in.”

Ait Mout, along with Co-Presidents Kevin Long Noll and Enshu Cheng, Class of 2021, wish they were given more support in developing their careers earlier on. This is what motivated them to launch the SIF for underclassmen. “It’s just to push more people towards the field and make them feel that … it’s accessible and it’s not as intimidating as it sounds,” they explained.

“We want to commend the mentors who are seniors and are doing capstone who are willing to take on the time to do presentations and run workshops,” Noll said gratefully. The mentors from the Class of 2021 include Abigail Shu, Jonathan Lee, Martin Doumanov, Sebastián Caro as well as Ait Mout, Cheng and Noll himself.

Since the program is fairly new, Noll and Cheng noted that their primary goal is not to make returns but rather to educate and develop the younger generation of aspiring analysts.

“We’re also all seniors and we’re leaving in about three months so we’re really hoping that there will be students in the fund who really enjoy their experience and learn a lot that they’ll be able to lead in the next years,” Ait Mout shared.