Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin - Finance Group

The Portfolio Management Program (PMP) allows students to acquire practical investment experience in professional asset management. Over the course of two years, 12 students manage a real-money portfolio of approx. € 1 Million. In the first year, students act as financial analysts, learn about the basics of investing and how to obtain financial information from Bloomberg, write investment reports, and get to know the portfolio. In the second year, students act as portfolio managers, and are in charge of the actual investment decisions. The PMP is a unique and innovative approach combining investment theory with practical asset management.

The PMP is based on a collaboration between Humboldt University, the European School of Management and Technology (ESMT), and the ZZ Vermögensberatung, an asset management company based in Switzerland.

Please see the PMP Introduction for a profound introduction to the program.

Program Design

The program begins with a kick-off meeting in mid November, after which the students are divided into three separate teams á 12 members to begin the program.

The official PMP meetings take place every other Friday and can be categorized as follows:

Introductory Session: The first sessions will be labelled as introductory sessions, where tutors equip the new analysts with all of the theoretical and practical knowledge needed to participate in the PMP.

Manager Meeting: The managers present their current and planned investment positions. Periodically, they present a general market outlook with respect to their portfolio composition.

Analyst Meeting: The analysts present their research on market regions, asset classes or investment strategies that are linked to the current portfolio composition.

Expert Talk: Occasionally, professionals from academia or finance join to share their insights with the PMP students.

Technical Meeting: These meetings involve exercises related to a quantitative topic. Each student group solves a set of empirical asset management problems and presents the findings to their tutors and mentors.

In addition, students, tutors and mentors gather for informal meetings to talk about specific aspects of the portfolios.

Who Should Apply?

The program is intended for master and advanced bachelor students. A genuine interest in financial markets and investing process is required. Students should have a solid foundation in finance, asset management, economics and/or possess work experience in those areas. Some introductory experience with quantitative tools such as R, Stata, or Python is of advantage. Most practical aspects of professional portfolio management will be learned during the program.

The program can be quite demanding. Students should expect to invest about 6 to 8 hours per week in the PMP. Students who complete the two-year program can earn 10 ECTS in the "Überfachlicher Wahlbereich" (ÜWP).

For further information about the program's structure, have a look at the program's homepage: https://www.esmt.org/degree-programs/masters-management/curriculum/portfolio-management-program. If you want to be part of the PMP, please apply until October 27th, 2023 (EOD) by sending your CV and a brief letter of motivation stating your interests in the PMP and answering the questions in the handout to PMP@esmt.org.