Masters’ Union School of Business, a technology-focussed business school set up earlier this year, has announced the launch of a student-managed investment fund with a corpus of Rs 5 crore (approximately $659,235 at current exchange rates).
The Masters’ Union Investment Fund will be part of the programme that it offers to students and will invest in real estate, capital markets, derivatives, stressed assets and startups, the Gurugram-based company said in a statement.
The eponymous masters – comprising of a group of business executives, academics and senior bureaucrats – said they would invest up to Rs 300 crore to set up and establish the school.
Some of these masters include former Boston Consulting Group chairman Arun Maira, former Tata Teleservices MD Mukund Rajan, former Reserve Bank of India chief economist and current Rajya Sabha MP Narendra Jadhav, and Viacom chief data scientist Tathagata Dasgupta.
Around 40% of the fund will be allocated to capital markets classes such as debt, equities and futures, while 30% will be dedicated to real estate and the remaining 30% to startups.
The corpus of the fund is currently being sourced from the masters associated with the institute.
Masters’ Union project director Pratham Mittal told VCCircle that the average ticket size for investments in real estate and startups will depend on a case-by-case basis. However, the fund will aim to land between five to six deals in each of these segments, he said.
“With this, students will get a real-time experience of running a mini hedge-fund and the ups and downs that accompany it,” Mittal said, adding that the fund was also in line with the institute’s core value of providing hands-on learning to its students.
Students will begin investing from the fund in November this year, with designated fund managers being mentored by the finance- and financial technology-focussed masters of the institute.
