Training Camp with Fund Managers to Learn LongTerm Investment Strategy
PART OF THE ALGEBRIS CHAIR HELD BY STEFANO CASELLI, THE CAMP OFFERED MORE THAN 30 GRADUATE STUDENTS FROM BOCCONI MSC PROGRAMS THE CHANCE TO UNDERSTAND WEALTH MANAGEMENT AND PUT IT TO WORK FOR THE WHOLE ECONOMY"Put 15 fund managers with two or three decades of experience and a record of success in the same room with some of Bocconi's best students, and you can get a look at the next generation of investors capable of bringing benefits to society as a whole". With these words Davide Serra, CEO of Algebris and Bocconi alumnus, explains the main purpose of the Training Camp that was held on January 27-31 at Bocconi within the initiatives related to the Algebris Chair in Long-Term Investment and Absolute Return, which was recently instituted and entrusted to Stefano Caselli.
"We selected 33 of the top Master of Science students," Caselli explains, "to give them the opportunity to discuss with some of the best-known fund managers in all sectors of investment. What gives this initiative a real educational value is that it actually develops skills: at the end of the long weekend, participants were asked to draft their own investment strategies which will be evaluated in a year's time, on the occasion of the second edition of the Camp”. Supported by an Algebris team, Bocconi’s grads got to know big names in the industry, "fund managers and heads of leading financial institutions like Allan Higgins of Coutts, Tim Ryan of Generali, Christian Lucas of Silver Lake, and Gian Maria Mossa of Banca Generali, in addition to Rob Cox of Reuters Breakingviews, says Caselli. The real goal is important and ambitious, and is in line with the mission of the Chair as a whole: "Currently wealth management is in the hands of a few non-Italian private funds," the Bocconi professor continues, "we want to create a new generation of fund managers graduating from Bocconi who are capable of reasoning on finance beyond purely speculative investment, and put the growth of wealth in the service of the growth of their own country.”
"What impressed me the most," says Jonathan Jurado, a UK student enrolled in the Bocconi MSc in Finance, "is the psychology and the line of thought that these great professionals adopt to justify their investments. Listening to their analyses and understanding the mentality of these people was the greatest learning experience." And not only that. The Training camp also responds to the pressing request coming from students for additional opportunities to have actual professional experiences during their studies, as testified by Camilla Veroni, enrolled in the MSc in Accounting, Financial Management and Control: "The Training Camp reflects Bocconi University’s concreteness in learning. Ambition, cooperation and intense work were the three key features of this incredible experience. With this program, Davide Serra and Stefano Caselli have managed to take us beyond the mnemonic study of numbers by teaching us to establish connections between long-term ideas and visions."
by Davide Ripamonti
Translated by Alex Foti
