Note: find the main Investing for Charity website here.

From the Team

The turbulence of recent events in economies across the world has brought to light that there is a drastic need for change. There can be increased regulations, government guarantees, stimulus packages and an increased focus on processes to ‘fix’ the problems. However, the key to real and lasting change is to find the cause of these events and work on the prevention rather than the cure.

We strongly believe that there needs to be a dramatic cultural shift in the financial services industry. This cultural shift must be away from greed and towards a genuine desire to provide transparent financial services and honest advice. UNIT Central aims to take significant steps towards making this change, by bringing about a sense of charity and collaboration amongst the elite students from Universities across the world.

Investing for Charity is an initiative, brought about by the combination of the desire amongst top students to learn about investing for young people, through practical experience, and the desire to help those less fortunate than ourselves through enhancing the educational opportunities of underprivileged children.

Through our collective ambition, support, motivation, charitable nature and knowledge we are the Students of Today – Investors of Tomorrow.

Best Wishes,

The UNIT Team

About

Investing for Charity – a student-managed fund – is an initiative to:

1. Provide education about investing and practical experience to students
2. Donate funds for the educational benefit of underprivileged youth, and
3. Build relationships between the donors primarily from the financial services industry, the students from elite Universities, and the Australian charities giving to a worthy cause.

Investing for Charity has strict guidelines on the method of investment. These can be found on the resources page of our website. The aims of these guidelines are to reduce the risk of investments, while still allowing students to gain knowledge about investment techniques. It will also introduce the notion of discipline with an investment strategy that has been shown to be successful.
The group of UNIT Equity Analysts is split into five separate sector-teams. Each sector-team is responsible for researching one area of the market. Stocks are bought on an annual basis, on a fixed date, with an equal amount of funds allocated to each sector. The investment strategy involves identifying opportunities to purchase businesses at a discount to their intrinsic value and holding for at least one year.

Before the buy decision is made, the UNIT Equity Analysts will make a pitch to the entire body of UNIT at the UNIT Annual Investing for Charity Event for 3 nominated and researched stocks to buy per sector-team, as well as set a target value for each. Members of the donor organisations and any interested members of the public are also encouraged to attend. Each stock pitch must be supported by the appropriate evidence and arguments. After each pitch, those in attendance will vote on one stock to buy, per sector-team.

The stocks are then held, for a minimum of one year, until they must be sold when either:

1. The stock reaches its designated target value, or
2. The stock has not reached its target value at any time after the initial one year and before the maximum holding period of five years.

All proceeds from dividends and sales of stock will go towards the nominated charities.

Note that in instances of mergers and acquisitions and share buy-back opportunities, an appropriate action can be decided amongst the UNIT Equity Analysts in a democratic fashion.

The performance of all stocks in the fund, all donations to the charities, and the donor organisations involved will be reported on a regular basis to the students at the University of Sydney, University of NSW, Macquarie University, and any other universities that become involved in the future, through the online newsletter Fully Franked.

Past issues of Fully Franked can be found on our resources page.

The team of UNIT Equity Analysts meets on a weekly basis to monitor the performance of the portfolio and discuss stock investment recommendations at a general level within their sector-teams. Then the team collectively discusses and debates current news pertaining to stocks and the equity markets.

UNIT engages university staff members and invites professional investment managers to offer guidance in the investment decision process. The involvement of experienced operators and mentors is aimed to help ensure that the donated funds are invested responsibly and the sponsors will achieve their goal of supporting the designated charities, while providing students and young professionals with the opportunity to gain real world experience in portfolio management.

Donor Benefits

UNIT Central aims to establish long-term relationships between financial institutions, top students, and charities with a worthy cause. To enable this, Investing for Charity will offer value to the donor organisations in the following ways:

1. The initiative would provide your organisation with an invaluable and cost-effective promotional opportunity.
2. There would be a significant increase your organisation’s prospective talent pool, as the Student-Managed Fund would attract top performers who exhibit excellent trading and investing skills, as well as providing these students with an opportunity to further their knowledge and experience before graduation.
3. For any employees from your organisation that choose to participate as a mentor or act in an advisory capacity to the student analysts, their initiative would leave a lasting level of admiration and respect for the organisation as they gain an invaluable training experience.
4. The proceeds from the fund would be used for a charitable and worthy cause. All proceeds from the fund, whether from dividends, capital or profit, will go to the designated charities. Thus, your organisation would provide financial support for the community and enhance its corporate social responsibility profile.
5. The list of donors involved in the fund will be promoted and readily available to all students across Australia’s elite Universities.
6. Opportunities will be provided for donors to have their logo on www.unitaustralia.com as well as on our newsletter Fully Franked.
7. Your organisation will have the opportunity to be actively involved in the promotion of financial literacy and social responsibility amongst students while also promoting the educational opportunities of underprivileged youth.