“At the University of Sydney Business School we share ideas and learn from each other. Through our many initiatives we challenge the status quo to reinvent ourselves and others.”
The teaching of finance and business in tertiary institutions is something TDM is incredibly passionate about. As an international fund manager that looks to invest in fast growing businesses managed and led by exceptional people, we have developed our own approach to making assessments of companies that fit our approach.
We feel that many of the skills we have developed over a lifetime of investing were not learnt at university and that unfortunately universities have focused their teaching too much on theoretical constructs. We are passionate to arm the next generation of investors with real world tools to ensure a better financial system and also to maximise their own investing outcomes.
To address some of the challenges that business schools have in providing ‘real world’ experience, we have partnered with the Sydney University Student Managed Fund. Our assistance is two-fold; we have donated funds that can be used by students to construct a sizable portfolio, with returns of the fund being used to fund scholarships for finance students of lower socio-economic backgrounds. The fund is managed year to year by different students as they progress through their degree.
Secondly, we deliver a number of lectures every year to the students of the fund which outline how we think about investing, how we make investment decisions, with the expressed purpose of instilling our core investing philosophies that have held TDM in great stead for the last 16 years.
For the last two years, we have also taken on two interns from this student cohort, with the aim to give them further firsthand experience in working as an investor.