Laurier Student Investment Fund
What is the LSIF?
The Laurier Student Investment Fund (LSIF) is a million dollar fund invested in stocks and managed by students. The fund is structured as a for-credit course. Student analysts accepted into the course learn about valuation and do research on potential new investments for the fund.
Philosophy
LSIF uses a purely fundamental investing approach to create a concentrated portfolio of high-conviction ideas. LSIF focuses on areas of the market where we can gain an informational advantage and identify market inefficiencies that larger institutions can't.
Strategy
LSIF runs a concentrated portfolio (between 10-20 holdings) of small and micro cap North American holdings. Before buying any security, the fund does extremely deep due diligence.
This due diligence typically involves a complete financial model, in-depth research, calls with company management, and multiple presentations to the faculty supervisors and alumni mentors.
The rationale for this strategy is simple:
- Due to minimal sell-side coverage and restrictive policies surrounding institutional funds, micro cap and small cap companies are often left uncovered and thus mispriced.
- As a result, institutional investors tend to avoid doing deep due diligence on smaller firms, allowing LSIF to uncover undervalued companies before others do.
- Larger companies tend to be well covered and understood by the investment community. This reduces the probability of the company being undervalued, and thus the potential for large returns.
Performance
Since inception, the LSIF strategy has:
- Yielded a 13.7% CAGR, vs a 8.7% CAGR of the S&P TSX Total Return Composite Index.
- Grown from an initial value of $126,000 to approximately $1.2 million today.
Selection Process
To be eligible for admission, students must have completed BU393 and earned at least an A- in both BU283 and BU393.
Admission will be offered to students on the basis of past academic performance and work experience.
Fill out the LSIF Application Form to apply.