Castlefield’s David Gorman was recently back on campus at Alliance Manchester Business School, spreading the word on Thoughtful Investing. In this piece, David summarises his talk to Sustainable Finance and Accounting students.

I wrote in May last year about the good relationship we have with Alliance Manchester Business School (AMBS), part of the University of Manchester. I studied there in the 1990’s and I have kept in touch with my alma mater ever since. In the last few years, we’ve mentored University of Manchester students and hosted them for work experience plus we have helped academic staff with their research.

I was back on campus last Friday, 20^th October, at the invitation of Prof. Viet Anh Deng and his colleague, Prof. Ning Gao. Viet Anh Dang is a Professor of Finance at AMBS and an editor of the academic Journal of Business Finance & Accounting, published by Wiley. Ning Gao is also a Professor of Finance at AMBS as well as Deputy Director of the Centre for the Analysis of Investment Risk (CAIR).

I addressed students who are taking a course in Sustainable Finance and Accounting. The students are drawn from three different MSc programmes; Accounting, Accounting & Finance and Finance. This academic year the course has 138 students, a big increase in numbers compared to last year.

My talk covered areas such as types of responsible investing, our stewardship efforts, growth in “ESG” as an investment theme and recent challenges. I then ran through a few examples of share purchases we’ve made in line with our positive investment themes, such as companies like Eckoh and GB Group which operate in cyber security and digital connectivity. The presentation was followed by a lively Q&A session and it was really pleasing to be asked some searching questions about the industry and about Castlefield by a very engaged group of students.

Written by David Gorman