Goizueta’s student-run real estate private equity fund continues to outdo itself, seven years after its inception.
The fund began in 2014 with $25,000. By 2019 it had increased nearly tenfold from donations and returns on real estate deals, and it keeps going up. The board has also burgeoned to 38 members, including BBA, MBA and law students. Roy Black, a professor in the practice of real estate and director of the real estate program, said, “We opened the Fund Board to law students this fall because the documents we review for potential investment have a substantial amount of legal terms and information. We have nine teams analyzing investment deals and one team researching the effect of a possible recession on our investment strategy.”
The fund has two goals: provide students an educational experience of managing real money and ultimately act as an endowment fund for the real estate program.
The student board meets six times each semester, and after they’re divided into teams, each team presents results of analysis before an investment decision is made. The fund invests in Reg. D private real estate syndications in the fall semester and publicly-traded REIT (real estate investment trust) stocks in the spring semester.
In October, students heard a pitch from alum Eric Freedman 00BBA (pictured) of Coastline Capital Partners, a California-based firm that is inviting investment in a current project.
Such experience provides a serious leg up in the job market.
Preston Stevens 15MBA worked with the fund while at Goizueta. He called the fund “a great hands-on learning experience” that prepared him for his current career as a CFA and senior underwriter at Freddie Mac in Washington, D.C.
Alumni interested in presenting projects for fund consideration should contact Roy Black at rblack2@emory.edu.
