The Finance and Investing Club at Suffolk University is now responsible for maintaining a new $200,000 investment fund endowed to them by the university.

The fund was created for the purpose of giving students experiential learning opportunities who are interested in investing. The money is not available for the club to spend, but it is there for them to manage.

Any money made goes back toward the fund or to the university, which Sampson said would go towards Suffolk’s mission of “experiential and transformative learning.”

Thomas Sampson is the treasurer of the Finance and Investing Club and has done a majority of the work training to get their members to be ready for the fund.

“We’re managing money on behalf of the endowment. We’re almost acting like an asset manager for this endowment like it’s a client,” Sampson said.

This new program is similar to the $200,000 James and Anne Willcox Scholarship Fund.

A senior-level finance class manages this fund.

“We wanted to do something the club could do as well so students who aren’t seniors in finance can actually get experience,” Sampson said.

Sampson also mentioned that other schools with similar programs have investment funds that their students get to experience.

“We [are now] doing something similar, and that would give us a competitive advantage in the job market,” he said.

Sampson also explained that their faculty adviser, Ric Thomas, was to thank for getting the club this new investment fund. He said Thomas has spoken with some university deans to get it rolling.

“The primary goal of the fund is to advance Suffolk University commissions and improve hands-on learning for our members,” said Onur Corbaci, vice president of the Finance and Investing Club.

Corbaci said that the purchasing decisions are made by students in the club chosen as “equity analysts” and they will research and pitch stock options. Then, with input from the club’s faculty adviser and E-Board, all members can vote on the stocks to invest in.

“We have different classes of membership. An analyst has a little bit more of a vote than a general member. Anyone who has been to three meetings and is a general member can come by and vote on stocks,” Sampson said.

Analysts are chosen by the E-Board, and have already been chosen for this year. The analysts pitch their ideas most Tuesdays and Thursdays when the club meets.

“It’s definitely going to allow for hands-on learning for every analyst that comes through the club,” Corbaci said. Stock pitches will continue through March.

“If all stocks are included, voted as a yes, we will have 20 stocks in the end which is enough to have a relatively diverse portfolio,” Sampson said.

The club will be using the S&P 500 to gauge the performance of its portfolio.

“Even regular fund managers have a very difficult time beating the S&P 500,” Corbaci said.

S&P 500 is an example of a stock market index and analyzes the performance of the top 500 U.S. companies. It’s commonly used as a benchmark for performance.

The fund will only invest in domestic, “large-cap” companies. These are companies that have a market capitalization of over $10 billion dollars and are characterized by being a transparent, stable investment option, according to Investopedia.

The club was founded by Liam O’Toole who is now a senior studying finance. He said he wanted to create a space where anyone could come and learn more about the finance world.

“A few years back it felt like the Sawyer Business school was missing something,” O’Toole said. “My friends and I who founded the club really wanted that bridge and connection for students to learn more about the industry.”

An investment fund for the club was a goal for O’Toole from the start.

“It’s huge, we’re super excited to get it up and running. This has been a goal for us from day one,” he said.

O’Toole said the club has been successful since its inception, and was awarded the Leadership Cornerstone award at last year’s Journey Leadership awards.

“We’ve definitely grown a lot. We’ve had a really good member base year after year,” O’Toole said.

Now in his senior year, O’Toole is happy to see the vision he had come to fruition.

“It’s kind of cool to see now, my senior year, being one of the founders, one of our original goals is being accomplished,” O’Toole said.

Outside of this new fund, the club brings in industry guest speakers to speak to and connect with members.

“We’ve actually had 10 to 15 members in the past year or two land internships or full-time roles through our guest speakers,” O’Toole said.

Last year the club hosted Greg Abel, chairman of Berkshire Hathaway Energy.

“He currently works under Warren Buffett and that was definitely a big accomplishment last year,” said Corbaci.

More recently the club partnered with the Finance Department to hold a “Future of Finance Panel” featuring Cheryl Vozella, David Swartz, Simona Mocuta and Vincent LePore.

Sampson wanted to make it clear that anyone is welcome to participate in the club.

“We’re not trying to make this some sort of exclusive boy’s club. That’s the absolute opposite. This is supposed to be for students at the university to better themselves,” Sampson said.

The Finance and Investing Club meets weekly during activities period and is open to any major.

Follow Jacob on Twitter @jafreese02