by Ben Claremon | Research Analyst
It was less than two years ago that I was sitting with some of my UCLA Anderson classmates, desperately trying to figure out what to do for our Applied Management Research or AMR project. Most students fulfill this requirement by completing a consulting project for a local company and writing a paper detailing their recommendations. However, we had our sights set on a different kind of project, one that would have a much greater impact on Anderson.
As a result of our efforts and after almost a year of discussions and planning, the inaugural “UCLA Anderson Investment Management Conference” will take place on February 10, 2012. Here is a list of the fantastic speakers and conversation moderators the talented current-MBAs have lined up to participate:
- Howard Marks: Chairman of Oaktree Capital Management
- Steve Romick: Managing Partner of FPA Funds
- James Ware: Founder of Focus Consulting Group
- Drew Zager: Managing Director of Morgan Stanley
- Dave Carpenter: Portfolio Manager at Capital Group and an Anderson graduate
- Chris Brightman: Director and Head of Investment Management at Research Affiliates
- George Letteney: President and CIO of the UCLA Investment Company
- Jonathan Sokoloff: Managing Partner at Leonard Green & Partners
- Dan Ewell: Chairman of the Western Investment Banking Division at Morgan Stanley
For anyone who is going to be in the LA area next week and would like to attend, I believe there are some free tickets still available. Just go to this site and register for the event. I know UCLA Anderson has the potential to become an investment management hub for Southern California and occupy a role similar to the one that Columbia plays in the New York area. The school just needs the continuing support of the alumni and the surrounding investment community. Given that there are three Cove Street team members with affiliations to Anderson, I will be there supporting my classmates and wearing my Bruins t-shirt. As usual, you can expect a follow up posting that includes my notes from the event. While we typically prefer to perform our own analysis here at Cove Street Capital, we would note the great truism that while it is deemed plagiarism to steal from one, it is research to take from many.
The following is for UCLA grads only!
THE FUTURE OPPORTUNITY FOR ANDERSON
In reality, the hosting of this conference is only one component of the plan my teammates and I developed. Specifically, by the time we started brainstorming about our AMR project, I had spent almost a full school year at Anderson and had identified a number of gaps in the investment management program. First and foremost, there were basically no practical investing courses offered at Anderson. Furthermore, there was no annual investment conference, no stock picking challenge and no investing club. Unfortunately, despite the fact that there are numerous investment firms in Southern California that literally manage trillions of dollars, investment management was not anyone’s focus and constantly played second fiddle to investment banking. Accordingly, it was my belief that there was an opportunity to place Anderson students at the top firms in Southern California that was being seriously overlooked.
Given the circumstances my teammates and I found ourselves in, we decided to do something very few (if any) had done before. Instead of looking for an outside company to offer our services to, we decided to pitch Anderson itself. The proposal was to perform a deep analysis of the investment management programs at the top MBA schools around the country, establish a set of best practices, and then formulate a set of recommendations for Anderson to evaluate. To our surprise, the unorthodox project was approved and we embarked on a six month study of how to improve the investment management program at Anderson. In the end, the final product was appropriately titled “The Ultimate Goal,” referring to our audacious proposition that Anderson move forward on creating a separate program for investment management, similar to the Graham and Dodd program at Columbia. Understanding that this would be a multi-year endeavor, the road map we created included a number of simple initial steps: establishing an investment management association, hosting a stock pitching competition and organizing an investment management conference.
Fast forward to today. I am happy to report that, by the end of this school year, at least two of these steps will have been taken. First, with support from the Anderson faculty and the Investment Finance Association, last year my teammates and I founded the school’s first student organization focused solely on investing: the Anderson Investment Association (AIA). From there we selected a board of ambitious first year students and encouraged them to use the AIA as a vehicle to implement some of our recommendations. Astutely, one of their first goals was to get the current students and alumni excited about investment management by hosting a conference.
Now that the day is upon us, I encourage anyone who is interested in investment management to attend and show your support for the home team.
