About
"DCM" - Desautels Capital Management
Desautels Capital Management is Canada’s first university-owned, student-run registered investment management firm. Established in 2009, Desautels Capital Management offers students in the Honours Investment Management program and the Masters of Management in Finance program meaningful and realistic experience in the industry. All students enrolled in the Honours Investment Management Program and Masters of Management in Finance program work for the company, managing four funds with approximately $7.5 million in assets.
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Students are divided by sector and use a combination of quantitative, fundamental, and ESG analysis to identify undervalued stocks and bonds. Students may also take on secondary roles in DCM's Risk Management, Economics, Sustainability, Quant, or Marketing teams. Students meet regularly with DCM's program mentors, Professors Vadim di Pietro and Jiro Kondo. Professor di Pietro acts as the firm’s Chief Investment Officer and advising representative and is responsible for approving all trades.
DCM and the Desautels Faculty of Management would like to express our sincere thanks to Ken Lester, the founding Chief Investment Officer of Desautels Capital Management. Ken joined McGill in 1992, where he taught Applied Investments, which was the first class of its kind to allow students to manage real money in real time. The class had been established three years prior in 1989, and originally co-taught by Prof. Bill Sealy and Ken’s father, Murray. Ken helped redesign the course, doubled its size and introduced a new guest lecture series. Applied Investments was a success by all measures. Recruiters regularly noted that students were graduating well ahead of their peers thanks to their practical money management experience. As a result, the idea grew that McGill should launch a dedicated honours program based on experiential learning in the money management industry. This eventually led to the establishment of Desautels’ Honours Investment Management program and Desautels Capital Management in 2009. Establishing DCM was no easy task, however, and entailed numerous legal, administrative, and regulatory hurdles. After years of hard work, the effort paid off and DCM became the first (and still only) fully registered student-run investment management company in the world, and we would like to thank some of the people who made that all possible: Desautels Finance Professor Peter Christoffersen who was the founding Academic Director of the HIM program. Ken Lester, DCM’s founding Chief Investment Officer, a position he would hold until his retirement in 2019. Alex King, who was part of Desautels’ Business Development Office. Marc Weinstein, Vice-President of University Advancement. Dean Peter Todd and the Finance area faculty. Desautels Faculty Advisory Board members Neil Murdoch and Don Lewtas who were original investors in the DCM funds. Neil is also a current DCM Board member. Maxime Lemieux, Portfolio Manager at Fidelity Investments, who championed the HIM program from its inception and continues to support and recruit from DCM. The success of the HIM program eventually led to the establishment in 2016 of our sister graduate program, the Master of Management in Finance (MMF). By now, we count over 500 HIM/MMF graduates and are incredibly proud of all they’ve accomplished. Finally, a special thanks to Ken for welcoming close to forty students to his cottage each year for HIM Weekend Orientation! Truly a testament to his love and dedication to his students.
