26 Graduate Student Teams Compete in First-of-Its-Kind Impact Investing Challenge
May 02 2019 - 8:30AM
Business Wire
Wharton Social Impact Initiative, Good Capital
Project, and Bank of America Collaboration Tests Students to
Achieve Social Impact and Financial Returns
Bank of America, together with the Wharton Social Impact
Initiative of the University of Pennsylvania and Good Capital
Project, today announced the winner of a first-of-its-kind
competition in which teams of graduate students from universities
across the country were challenged to design investment portfolios
for positive social and environmental impact as well as competitive
financial returns.
- A team of five students from the
University of Vermont’s Grossman School of Business won the
inaugural Total Impact Portfolio Challenge (TIPC) and was honored
last night at the Total Impact Conference in Philadelphia. The
group was chosen from five finalist teams – selected in March –
hailing from Boston University, Columbia University, Fordham
University, University of Vermont, and Yale University.
- 26 student teams from 19 graduate
schools participated in the competition, a collaboration of Wharton
Social Impact Initiative – which is dedicated to advancing
knowledge at the intersection of business and social impact through
data, analytics, and innovation – and Good Capital Project, an
initiative to drive more capital toward purpose-driven
investments.
- Bank of America’s wealth management
businesses, which include Merrill and the Bank of America Private
Bank, provided student mentoring and sole sponsorship for the
competition. Student teams worked with nearly 50 Bank of America
mentors – including wealth advisors, portfolio managers, and
sustainability experts – to construct portfolios that could meet
financial performance and impact goals, as well as risk tolerance,
of a hypothetical private foundation or family office client.
“At Wharton and beyond, we see growing student interest in
impact investing,” said Nick Ashburn, senior director at the
Wharton Social Impact Initiative. “Venture capital often gets all
of the attention on campus and in the industry, but asset owners
are increasingly looking to integrate impact across all of their
investments – from public equities and fixed income to
alternatives. The Total Impact Portfolio Challenge equips students
for a wider range of careers that will meet this demand.”
Additional companies focused on impact investing also lent their
expertise and support to the competition, including Toniic, Aapryl
and Align Impact who served as content partners supporting students
through educational and industry resources, webinars, and case
studies.
“Greater numbers of college and graduate school students are
expressing interest in learning how to be tomorrow’s leaders in
sustainable investing,” said Jackie VanderBrug, head of sustainable
and impact investment strategy in the Chief Investment Office for
Merrill and Bank of America Private Bank. “Demand continues to grow
for investments that achieve both financial and social
returns. We are delighted to offer our support to students
interested in learning how to meet investors’ evolving needs.”
Student portfolios were judged by an independent panel of
industry experts based on criteria such as an understanding of the
investor, the rigor of their research and due diligence, and the
quality of their impact/environmental, social and governance (ESG)
analysis and portfolio construction. The top teams constructed
multi-asset class strategies using ESG and impact lenses that met
their clients’ competitive financial returns and fulfilled targeted
impact and sustainability goals.
“We were struck by the range of approaches students took to
creatively integrate ESG and impact considerations into their
portfolio allocation decisions,” said Sharadiya Dasgupta, managing
director of Good Capital Project. “They looked at individual
holdings of mutual funds and ETFs to dissect ESG scores, studied
the use of proceeds of municipal bonds, and scanned the composition
of fund management teams to align to gender diversity and inclusion
goals. We are hopeful that having gone through this program,
participating students will be strongly inclined to apply the
sustainability lens in whatever financial roles they pursue
next.”
Bank of AmericaBank of America is one of the world’s leading
financial institutions, serving individual consumers, small and
middle-market businesses and large corporations with a full range
of banking, investing, asset management and other financial and
risk management products and services. The company provides
unmatched convenience in the United States, serving approximately
66 million consumer and small business clients with approximately
4,400 retail financial centers, including approximately 1,800
lending centers, 2,200 financial centers with a Consumer Investment
Financial Solutions Advisor, and 1,500 business centers;
approximately 16,400 ATMs; and award-winning digital banking with
more than 37 million active users, including over 27 million mobile
users. Bank of America is a global leader in wealth management,
corporate and investment banking and trading across a broad range
of asset classes, serving corporations, governments, institutions
and individuals around the world. Bank of America offers
industry-leading support to approximately 3 million small business
owners through a suite of innovative, easy-to-use online products
and services. The company serves clients through operations across
the United States, its territories and approximately 35 countries.
Bank of America Corporation stock (NYSE: BAC) is listed on the New
York Stock Exchange.
For more Bank of America news, including dividend announcements
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Reporters May Contact:Susan Atran, Bank of America,
1.646.743.0791susan.atran@bankofamerica.com
Matt Card, Bank of America,
1.617.434.1388matthew.card@bankofamerica.com
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