The mandate, in summary

The fund is small relative to institutional portfolios, so commission, stamp duty, spread, currency conversion and ongoing fund charges can be a material share of return. Cost is treated as a risk. A trade may not be executed where the estimated total round-trip cost exceeds 1.0% of the trade value, which in practice sets a minimum sensible trade size; the Operations & Reporting Officer calculates it and updates it whenever the broker’s schedule changes.

The 2% minimum position size and the 20-holding maximum exist for the same reason: a long tail of tiny positions justifies neither its dealing costs nor the research time to monitor it, and a student team cannot genuinely cover more than twenty names alongside a degree. Where two funds offer equivalent exposure and equivalent compliant methodology, the cheaper one is preferred and any decision to the contrary is justified in the minutes. All reported performance is net of everything in this section.

Buying is the part every fund documents; selling is the part that decides the return. A position is reviewed for sale where the original thesis is invalidated or a stated key assumption proves wrong; where it breaches or would breach a limit; where it stops complying with the exclusion policy; where the valuation reaches the target set in the original pitch; or where it has materially underperformed its sector or the composite over a rolling twelve months without a reason the Committee accepts.

A review does not compel a sale. Hold, trim or exit, the outcome is minuted with reasons every time. There are no automatic stop-losses: selling decisions are made on the thesis, not on price movement alone.

Net asset value is struck monthly at the close of the last business day, using closing prices and the broker’s published closing exchange rates. Returns are time-weighted, in sterling, net of all dealing, currency and pooled fund costs. Time-weighted return is used because it measures the Committee’s decisions independently of when capital happens to arrive, which the Committee does not control. A money-weighted return may be reported additionally where flows are material, clearly labelled as such.

Periods shorter than twelve months are reported as cumulative returns and are never annualised or extrapolated. The Operations & Reporting Officer prepares the figure, the Risk & Compliance Officer verifies it independently against the broker statement, and the Academic Adviser signs it off quarterly. No performance figure may be published externally, used in recruitment or sponsorship material, or included in any member’s personal materials before that sign-off. Any error in a published figure is corrected, the correction disclosed, and the reason minuted.

The exclusion policy governs what the fund will not own; stewardship governs how it behaves as an owner of what it does hold. For a fund with an explicit sustainability mandate, silence on ownership rights would be an inconsistency, and voting the fund’s shares is one of the few things a student fund can do that most do not.

Where practical the fund votes its direct holdings, instructed by the Academic Adviser on the Committee’s recommendation. The default is to support the board, except on resolutions concerning climate transition planning, environmental disclosure, human rights due diligence or executive remuneration, where the Committee forms and minutes its own view first. The full voting record for the year is published in the annual report. The fund does not vote the underlying holdings of pooled funds, does not engage in activism, and does not join collective engagement initiatives without written approval.

Before pitching or voting on a security, every member declares any personal holding in it or its direct competitors, any family interest, and any employment, internship or live application relationship with the issuer. A declared interest means presenting and answering questions but not voting, and the abstention is minuted.

No member may deal personally in a security for five business days either side of the fund dealing in it, or on the basis of a pitch that has been circulated but not yet decided. The Risk & Compliance Officer keeps the register, and declarations are recorded whether or not they result in an abstention. Members may reference their own work in job applications and share pitches they personally authored; they may not disclose live holdings, intended trades or unpublished performance.

All gains are retained while the fund grows. A distribution may be made for a financial year only if the fund has a continuous track record of at least three full financial years; its net asset value exceeds the minimum threshold agreed in writing with the Academic Adviser; the value immediately after the distribution would remain above the aggregate capital contributed to the fund; the Academic Adviser and University Finance have approved that year in writing; and no breach is outstanding.

The maximum is the lower of 4% of average month-end net asset value over the preceding three financial years and 30% of the fund’s total return for that year. It goes only to an approved University hardship, bursary or access fund, never to an individual student or staff member and never to the fund’s own members. Any distribution is disclosed in the annual report with the full calculation.

The rule is deliberately written against average net asset value rather than against realised profits. Tying a distribution to realised gains would give a team that wants to fund bursaries a reason to sell holdings, which works against the long-term horizon stated two sections earlier, and would allow a payout out of realised gains while unrealised losses sat in the portfolio. An endowment-style spending rule avoids both, and is what university endowments use.

Officer terms run for one academic year, each role has a named deputy who may act with its full authority, and outgoing officers overlap with their successors for at least four weeks and leave a written handover pack: current holdings and the reasoning behind each, open items, the risk register, access details, and any outstanding breaches. Records belong to the University and are not held solely in personal accounts.

Meetings are suspended during formal examination periods, and between the end of the summer examinations and the start of Michaelmas the portfolio is held on a monitoring-only basis: no new position without written approval. The mandate is reviewed at least annually, amendments need written approval from the Academic Adviser, and changes to the sections on legal status, prohibited instruments, concentration limits or surplus additionally require consulting the Advisory Board. Amendments take effect prospectively only, so the mandate in force at the time governs any past decision. Where the mandate is silent, or two provisions conflict, the more conservative reading applies.