As an international financial center, Hong Kong needs a reliable supply of financial elites who would be able to nurture the industry's development in the future. The first Financial Training Program 2012 initiated by local asset management firm Pegasus Fund Managers Ltd is the number one step to foster industry talents' growth.

"The mission of the Financial Training Program is to nurture the next generation of financial elites and prepare future leaders and elites in the financial sector, reflecting Pegasus' belief in corporate social responsibility," Pegasus Managing Director Paul Pong said.

Four Japanese university students have been invited for the first time to participate in this three-week internship program, which attracted the most number of university students to join compared withprevious programs organized by Pegasus.

Under the program, the students will have the chance to practice their research and presentation skills by undertaking various investment analysis projects.

A main focus of the program is a portfolio competition, which involves each student being assigned to carry out research by rotation. And then, based on their research and analyses, they are allocated assets globally which they will deal with based on their knowledge until the last week of the program. The student who gains the most returns is declared the winner. The competition allows students to experience the investment process and risks, familiarize themselves with different investment tools, and apply their knowledge in asset allocation gained throughout the program.

Representatives from UBS and HSBC are also invited by the program to introduce the daily operation of investment banking and asset management.

"The students' feedback is excellent, (as) they all say that the internship program can help them prepare for their careers in the financial industry in the future," Pong said.

"We will continue to organize such internship program in the future," Pong said, adding that Pegasus will increase the internship student enrollment to 10. He was particularly optimistic that the summer internship in 2013 can recruit some students from the mainland, Taiwan and Korea.

"The internship program should be internationalized as much as possible. If the program can recruit some students from the mainland and Taiwan as well as other foreign countries, this will represent a good student mix," Pong said.

"We want to increase the internship student intake number based on our capability to assign suitable work tasks to them," Pong said.

oswald@chinadailyhk.com

(HK Edition 08/25/2012 page2)