6.news
Monday 30 November 2015
The Courier
Fruks features in first finance conference By Valentina Egorova Champagne corks were popping at the Law school to celebrate the first Newcastle University Finance Conference. Hosted by Newcastle University Private Equity & Venture Capital Club, the event was hailed as a massive success. The Finance conference brought together four speakers from Morgan Stanley, Deutsche Bank, Northstart ventures and Fruks, the trading platform for students. These leading professionals gave an insight into investments, private equities, banking and emerging markets. Dr Michelle Cooper, investment manager from Northstart ventures, after giving a talk about funded venture capital firms in sparkling industry of the North East, commented: “I love the fact that university is interested in investments. I was not thinking about anything even remotely like this when I was a student. “I think there was a very diverse audience across all kinds of different disciplines and everyone has that level of interest in investment, market and private equity - it’s fantastic.” The Finance Conference was organized by co-founders of Newcastle University Private Equity & Venture Capital Club, Felix Curtis and William Leppard. Speaking to The Courier, Felix and William said: “The purpose of the event was to
break the conventional image large institutional banks have of Russell Group Universities and demonstrate the willingness and ability there is in finance in students. “It was also a great introduction to provide students with a platform to network with professionals in the finance industry given by an emerging society. “We are extremely proud of this venture and we hope to continue to contribute to our dear Newcastle University in our way” The conference featured Newcastle University student Andrea Cavallo, who ran a talk about his rapidly developing start-up. Almost a year ago, he along with his friends decided to build a student commission-free platform to buy and sell items between students at their university. Later in his interview for The Courier, Cavallo recalled how they started the business: “We were annoyed about the fact that people were trying to sell stuff on Facebook and their items were mixed up with everything. “We decided to build a basic platform and try it out on a small audience, a business school in the north of France. It worked and attracted the majority of students. “Fruks.com is now implemented in various universities across France and the UK. “It’s many hours of work, but it’s an incredible experience and would rec-
“There was a very diverse audience across all kinds of different disciplines”
Krishan Tanna, Javier Tello, Tom Cullen and Christopher Vinter Image: Valentina Egorova ommend anyone with an idea to get started.” He added that he was delighted to participate in Finance Conference: “The conference was a great success, I enjoyed it as much as a listener and a speaker. “Will and Felix have worked hard in starting this Venture and Capital club as well as finding impressive speakers
from world known firms. “We hope there will be many more conferences to come.“ Felix and Will are not going to stop at this achievement, they are already making plans for the future: “As a result of the success we achieved in the conference, we are now thinking of the future of our club. “We believe that the future of our
club is heading towards gaining our first sponsorship contract with a company. “We are planning of not only hosting conferences, but to organise specific trips to London and abroad to provide the opportunity for our members to experience finance from different cultures. “We are extremely excited about the future of our club and hope to continue the level of growth we are ongoing.”