Royal Holloway, University of London · Business School
Prune Hill Capital
A student-led, non-profit equity fund. Students find the ideas, write them up and argue them in committee; the Academic Adviser holds the account and places the orders. What the fund may own, what it may never own and how it will be measured are set out in Investment Mandate v1.2, and the whole of it is on this site.
Mandate v1.2, 14 August 2026 Long-only, unlevered Sterling, unhedged Egham, Surrey
01 Position
Structure and authority
Most of what a fund is, is a set of constraints. Here are Prune Hill’s, with the clause each one comes from.
Prune Hill Capital is an educational activity of the Royal Holloway Business School. It is long-only, unlevered and invests in listed developed-market shares, screened pooled funds and cash. It manages no money belonging to anyone but the University, and it never will: it does not take subscriptions from students, staff, alumni or the public, and it issues no units.
Every student officer is advisory. The research, the modelling, the argument and the vote all belong to the Investment Committee; the order does not. That division is what keeps the fund an educational activity rather than something requiring authorisation, and it is the structure most UK university funds use.
- Founded by
- Hugo Christie, who holds the Managing Partner and Chief Investment Officer role.
- Legal status
- Not a separate legal entity. An educational activity under the Business School. §2.1
- Assets
- Held in a brokerage account in the University’s name. Beneficial ownership rests with the University. §2.2
- Who deals
- The Academic Adviser, who is the sole executing authority. Students hold read-only account access. §2.3, §2.4
- Outside money
- None. No subscriptions, no units, no advice to third parties. §2.5
- Currency
- Sterling, unhedged. Currency is a consequence of the geographic allocation, not a source of intended return. §6
- Horizon
- Months to years. No momentum trading, no speculative positioning. §14.2
- Leverage
- Zero, absolute. No borrowing, no margin, no shorting, no derivatives, in any market condition. §4.2, §8.7
- Distributions
- To an approved University hardship or bursary fund only, and not before a three-year track record exists. Never to an individual. §17
02 Status
Current status
Where things stand
This site describes Investment Mandate v1.2, dated 14 August 2026. That version is a draft. It does not take effect until Appendix A (the capital base, the broker and the commission schedule) is completed and the Academic Adviser has approved it in writing.
There is no signed-off performance record yet, so there are no performance figures anywhere on this site. When there is one it will be a monthly time-weighted return in sterling, net of every dealing, currency and fund cost, verified against the broker statement by the Risk & Compliance Officer and signed off by the Academic Adviser before it appears in public, in recruitment material, or on anybody’s CV (§11.2, §11.5). Returns for periods shorter than twelve months are reported as cumulative returns and are never annualised (§11.4).
03 Process
From idea log to trade blotter
Seven stages, and an idea can die at any of the first three. Most should.
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Idea log
One paragraph before any research begins: the company, the suspected variant perception, and why it is worth a week. Every idea is logged, including the ones that get dropped, with the reason, the date and the price on that date.
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Go, or no-go
Fifteen minutes with the Head of Research. Is there plausibly an argument here? Most ideas stop at this stage, and stopping early is the point.
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Draft review
Thirty minutes against the three tests in the Research Standard. The draft is either cleared to circulate or sent back with written feedback. Roughly half of first drafts should be sent back; a process in which nothing is ever returned is a process that is not being applied.
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Circulation
The written pitch reaches the Committee at least three days before the meeting. Six pages of body text at most, plus whatever exhibits and models the author wants to attach.
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Committee
Ten minutes to present, fifteen minutes of challenge, then a vote. Quorum is four voting members and must include the CIO and the Risk & Compliance Officer, or their deputies. Anyone with a declared interest in the security may present and answer questions but may not vote, and the abstention is minuted.
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Pre-trade check
The Risk & Compliance Officer checks the approved trade against every limit in the mandate and confirms compliance in writing. A trade that fails the check does not proceed. There is no discretion and no override, including by the Academic Adviser.
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Decision record
Thesis in three lines, the key assumptions with the numbers assumed, the exit conditions, the score and the vote. Filed against the position and not edited afterwards, so that next year the comparison between what was assumed and what happened is unavoidable.
The purpose of the research process is not to describe companies.
Research Standard v1.0, §1
04 Exclusions
What the fund will not own
Stated as revenue thresholds rather than adjectives, so that the policy can be applied by whoever holds the role next year and get the same answer.
Derivatives, leverage, short selling, cryptoassets, unlisted securities and anything the Committee cannot value from a public daily price are prohibited outright (§4.2). Beyond that, the fund will not knowingly hold a company earning more than a stated share of consolidated revenue from these activities (§4.3):
| Excluded activity | Revenue threshold |
|---|---|
| Oil, gas and coal: extraction, production, refining, storage, transport | 5% |
| Thermal coal, oil sands, and power generation from coal | 0% |
| Armaments and weapons systems | 5%, and 0% for cluster munitions, anti-personnel landmines, and biological, chemical or nuclear weapons |
| Gambling operations | 5% |
| Tobacco | 0% production, 5% distribution and retail |
| Adult entertainment | 5% |
A company assessed as being in serious and ongoing breach of the Ten Principles of the UN Global Compact is excluded as well. That is the standard the phrase “international norms” refers to here, named so it means something specific. Where a company’s revenue split cannot be established from public disclosure, the position cannot be taken.
A fund is judged on its methodology document, never on its name.
Investment Mandate v1.2, §4.4(c)
05 Documents
The documents the fund runs on
Two of them, and both are summarised in full on this site rather than described in a sentence and kept behind a form.
- Mandate v1.2
- 14 August 2026 · draft, pending Academic Adviser approval. Instruments, exclusions, allocation, concentration limits, benchmark, drawdown triggers, breach handling, distributions. Read the summary →
- Research Standard v1.0
- Approved by the Investment Committee. What a pitch has to prove before anyone will hear it, and the grounds on which it gets sent back. Read the summary →
- Reporting
- Monthly valuation and holdings record to the Committee and the Academic Adviser; quarterly report adding attribution, limit compliance and the breach log; annual report adding the re-underwrite outcomes, the screening source, the voting record, costs and turnover. §11.6
- Retention
- Valuations, blotters, pitches, minutes and reports are kept for at least six years. Breaches stay in the log after they are cured, because the pattern over time says more than any single entry. §11.7, §16.4
06 Join
Open to any Royal Holloway student
Any year, any degree subject, no finance background assumed. What the fund needs is people who will read a set of accounts properly and then argue with the room about what they found. Roughly six to eight hours a week in term, fortnightly meetings on campus, and a written pitch when you have something worth pitching.
Get in touch
There is no application form on this site on purpose: a form that posts nowhere is worse than an email address. Write to the fund and say which role interests you.
- Based at
- Business School, Royal Holloway, Egham, Surrey TW20 0EX