No More Play Money

"They just have some really ridiculous returns," he gushes about Impac.

"It's thrilling."

Ballew has not prepared his presentation for a class research project but instead to convince his fellow students to invest in the company using University endowment money.

Students in the Kenan-Flagler Business School get real-world experience and invest real-world dollars every Wednesday night as they invest endowment money in a class called "Applied Investment Management."

In a reversal of the typical student- teacher relationship, professors Mustafa Gultekin and Michael Hussey proudly look on as their students take the floor to make sales pitches.

But the professors are ready to offer their collective scholarly and practical wisdom to the class at any moment.

Hussey breaks into dissertations that cover a wide range of material while Gultekin peppers the discussion with humorous yet informative anecdotes.

"They are the most boring company," Gultekin says about Cemex, a concrete production firm that one student pitched. "They haven't changed anything for the last 2,000 years."

When the class splits up into two teams -- each working with a separate investment fund -- the students show exactly how they can do better than financial professionals.

The class draws from two funds, which come from endowed gifts to the business school, to invest in equities and bonds. The Reynolds Fund began as a $10,000 gift in the 1950s, and the Cherry Hills Investment Fund began as a $500,000 donation in 1998 by portfolio manager Tom Marcico, who now guest lectures for the course.

Wednesday night is the Cherry Hills group's turn to meet in the trading room, a cluttered financial enclave where real-time trade and news reports read on two large television screens and heated debate rages at the conference table.

Here, the students have complete autonomy when making decisions to sell or buy shares in companies. Gultekin, who advises the Cherry Hills investment group, allows students to do much of the talking but provides them a resource in his financial knowledge.

At its financial peak in 2000, the Cherry Hills fund reached $713,000. All of its accumulated earnings -- given that they do not exceed 5 percent of its market value -- go back to the Kenan Institute for Entrepreneurship and Durham Scholars, an organization that provides after-school care and educational help to children in economically depressed areas of Durham.

As of last year, the Reynolds Fund had ballooned to $300,000. Half of its profits have gone toward the Orange County chapter of the United Way.

Mark Yusko, the chief investment officer at the University Development Office, said he is impressed with the progressiveness of these funds. "These are benefactions from very forward-looking, intelligent donors who saw a need and an opportunity to provide a program that is very beneficial to us," he said.

Yusko, who started a similar program at Notre Dame in 1994 and co-taught the investment course when it began at UNC in 1998, said the class's mix of academic theory and real-world experience helps motivate students.

"What you see is a more intense focus in the students, which is probably why the performance is so good," he said.

Relishing their assumed roles as Wall Street moguls, the students crack jokes and present financial arguments.

"HCA's been rallying. That thing is hot!" Brian Manczak sarcastically comments on a company's plummeting market value.

But the students know how much of an impact their decisions make.

Using knowledge of the market's behavior and any news or historical information that might impact a company's financial performance, they consistently make tough calls.

"You go to bed every night and you worry about it," Gultekin explains.

"That makes a big difference."

The Features Editor can be reached at features@unc.edu.