The Twikker Fund

It all started with...

a very generous donation from Steve Kiln, a private investor and alumnus, who continues to be involved in the management of the fund. The fund’s objective is to achieve sustainable capital gains primarily through investments in equities, fixed-income assets, and funds. By holding a variety of assets from different industries, the fund is able to manage risk and minimise draw-downs during turbulent episodes. 

Fund Structure

The Twikker Fund is partitioned into two parts: the Student Competition and the Long-term Fund. 

The Competition Fund consists of a competition between 5 different teams each receiving a starting capital of £10,000 at the beginning of the year. Each sum is fully managed by the student team that seeks to best each other in returns over the academic year. The portfolio of holdings of each team is made up of equities, mutual funds, fixed income and ETFs. The Fund meets every week and every analyst gets the opportunity to learn and put in practice their skills progressively through  the semester. Although there is a competitive selection process to enter the competition Fund, no prior experience in investing is required, we encourage both novice and experienced investors to apply.

The Long Term fund is divided in 4 different segments: Income, Defensive, Growth and a Yorkshire fund. The Income seeks to achieve returns by holding assets that produce an income such as dividend yielding stocks and bonds. The Defensive fund holds defensive assets and acts as a buffer between the student competition and the open markets. The Growth Fund holds equities with the potential to grow. The Yorkshire Fund as the name suggests, is a fund that invests exclusively in Companies whose HQ are based in Yorkshire.  The LTF is also run by experienced students. 

Capital gains are ordinarily retained within the fund, whilst any income received was previously used to fund bursaries for University of Sheffield Archeology students. Moving forward we are looking into how we can repurpose the cash to continue positively impacting students. A part of the income is given to the Investment Society to promote activities happening during the year (guest talks, CV workshops, Christmas and Summer balls etc)

Analysts in the fund must remain up to date with financial news, research securities and write analyst reports in order to make investment decisions. The skills developed on the fund have allowed many previous members to secure internships, placements and graduate positions at top-tier financial institutions.

The fund is now worth…

In excess of £250,000

The competition fund is a £50,000 fund which is partitioned and managed by different teams. Each student team is given £10,000 at the start of the year and must try and generate the highest return by the end of the year to win a prize. Entry to the fund is highly competitive via a comprehensive interview process.

Each team gathers weekly for strategy meetings in which they review their portfolio and talk about interesting stocks and markets. Teams must do a lot of research before placing a trade and trades are only executed by the chairs of the fund upon receipt of a detailed analyst report. 

The whole fund meets weekly to learn about analytical techniques and discuss macro trends.

Archie Dubbin - Chairman, Desmond Chen - Vice-Chairman

For inquires related to the Twikker Fund, please contact Archie Dubbin, the Twikker Fund Chairman, at adubbin1@sheffield.ac.uk

Twikker Fund Teams