“Money, Wealth Accumulation and Societies” – Students and alumni learn about private equity from industry leaders

From 27 September to 1 November, Yale-NUS College students and alumni, together with students from Yale University explored topics on private equity through a special non-credit bearing ‘Intensive’ programme brought about by a collaboration between Yale-NUS and Yale School of Management (SOM).

Titled, ‘Wealth Accumulation and Societies: Raising Capital for Private Equity in Asia’, the Intensive comprised six sessions held simultaneously on the Yale-NUS and Yale campuses. The instructor was Dr Kevin Lu, Partner and Chairman of Asia, Member of Global Executive Board and head of the Singapore office of Partners Group.

Students attending a session held simultaneously at Yale-NUS and Yale campuses. Top photo shows students taking the class at Yale-NUS, and bottom photo shows the session at Yale. Images taken by Cole Lim. 

“As a liberal arts student passionate about private market investments, the course offered a unique opportunity to gain a multi-disciplinary holistic understanding of private equity. More specifically, it provided a strong foundation for understanding the nuances and intricacies of raising capital for a new fund in Southeast Asia,” said Yale-NUS student Diviyam Agarwal (Class of 2023) as he shared about his motivations for joining the course.

Diviyam added: “The material offered in the course is an accumulation of experience from seasoned professionals that would not be found in any textbook. Dr Lu brought theoretical concepts to real life by sharing thoughtful anecdotes from his experience. It furthered my intellectual curiosity about private markets and gave me a good platform from which to kickstart my career.”

Students were introduced to sovereign and private wealth accumulation in Asia in the span of five sessions of the Intensive, with a final project presentation in the last session.

Madeleine Danzberger is an exchange student at Yale-NUS from the American University in Washington, DC.

Her academic background in environmental studies and professional interest in environmental, social, and governance (ESG) investing drew her to the Intensive.

Having a limited background in business and finance, Madeleine shared that “it was like a crash course for me – there was so much information I was not familiar with prior to the course.” Yet, she found the course organised in an easily understandable and digestible way for people to learn regardless of their background.

“Most of the information available at my home university is very focused on the US. During the course, I gained a non-Western perspective on topics like Sovereign Wealth Funds, and ESG investing and learned more about how different countries manage their money,” she added.

Like Madeleine, Maretta Simon (Class of 2023) also found the discussion on the topic of ESG insightful. “I learned that ESG and impact-focused investments in the private space are really picking up – not just in the form of buzz words that investors are worried about, but also actions based on this. I was under the impression that there is a lot of greenwashing in this space, but upon listening to many high-profile speakers, I am positively convinced that they are putting their money where impacts assessments (according to United Nations Sustainable Development Goals) are valid alongside suitable returns from the investments”

Ryan Lee (Class of 2021) is a Yale-NUS College alumnus who decided to come back to the Yale-NUS classroom to join the Intensive. “I wanted to learn more about Private Equity in general as I was transitioning into a new investment analyst role at a family office.” He further shared that the session on Private and Family Wealth was very insightful for better understanding the big picture of his new role.

A novel aspect of this course, according to Ryan, was the focus on the practicalities of Private Equity fundraising. The course reviewed how major societal changes in Asia affect what Asian investors expect from private market managers in terms of capital deployment, liquidity, co-investment, strategic partnerships, and knowledge transfer. It also elaborated on the differences between fundraising techniques in Asia vs Europe/North America, such as differing criteria for investment track record, the role of trust and relationship, and preferences for risk-return profile.

“The previous courses I took in college never really touched on the topic. Learning about how the fundraising process works was really interesting to me.”

Yale-NUS Vice President of Engagement Trisha Craig, whose office organised the programme, said: “We’re so fortunate to partner with Yale SOM this year. We have SOM Professor Song Ma who helped put this together; he’s a specialist in corporate finance and private equity so he brings great perspective. I’m really excited that we’ve created an ‘Intensive’ that offers a much more nuanced view of what’s going on in Asia, a region that is growing very rapidly in the private equity space, than is typically presented to students and I think that’s really valuable for our students.”