Mercyhurst University’s Endowment Board recently authorized The Laker Asset Management club to manage and invest $100,000 of the school’s $35 million endowment fund.

“It will be a great experience for the students to actually go invest it after doing the research on what to invest with and consider it on a moral basis,” said David Myron, vice president of Finance and Administration.

Founded in the fall of 2016, the club’s focus is to “create an intellectually creative environment for a hands-on experience of financial markets, and maximize networking opportunities with professionals working in the field,” said club co-founder Grant Coultrup, a senior Accounting and Business Management double major.

The club consists of an investment board, made up of the four club officers and a marketing president, and about 20 analysts. The analysts make up research teams that gather a variety of data, develop a report on whether a position would be a good buy and present it to the investment board as a potential investment.

“We strongly believe fundamentals are the long-term drivers of growth. With our thematic investment strategy, we will analyze economic, technological, political, environmental and social (factors) that fundamentally impact the economic landscape,” said Adrian Larsen, a sophomore who has a triple major in Internal Business, Business Economics and Finance.

All investments that are made are routed through a broker that has ties to Mercyhurst.

“Every trade ultimately goes through a broker that is connected to Mercyhurst,” said Coultrup. “Additionally, our treasurer will keep track of all the transactions to ensure there are no discrepancies.”

Bernardo Ramirez, a senior Finance and Business Competitive Intelligence double major, is president and co-founder of the club.

“We are working towards creating what we feel is our competitive advantage, social capital,” said Ramirez. “Social capital in this sense means maintaining a network of highly ambitious, highly skilled members that will work as a unit to achieve our goals.

“Our social capital will last far beyond our graduation dates. As our numbers grow, our network will extend across a variety of fields and will create new opportunities for our current and former members,” he said.