Continued support from Croesus enables John Molson students to manage wealth like professionals

For the past five years, finance students at Concordia’s John Molson School of Business have been learning to master the intricate, high-stakes skills of wealth management like experts thanks to professional-grade software provided by Croesus, a Canadian fintech company. Now, because of a new gift-in-kind from Croesus to the Campaign for Concordia: Next-Gen Now, this unique learning opportunity will continue.

More than half of Canada’s portfolio managers, financial advisors and other wealth-management professionals use Croesus Advisor, a software solution that lets them easily model portfolios, view clients’ holdings and histories, make orders, track performance and generate detailed reports — all based on live feeds of reliable data.

Croesus first gifted Advisor to Concordia in 2019, and has now committed to renew it for another five years, until 2029. One hundred and fifty licenses will be available to students during this timeframe, for a total value of $750,000.

“Until fairly recently, students learned from simulated systems,” says Marc Riel, BComm 89, GrCert 12, Croesus’s vice-president of Business Development for North America.

“They were managing pretend money in Excel. Now, there’s actual money in their hands and they get concrete experience of what it is to see a portfolio go up or down.”

For instance, Concordia’s Van Berkom Investment Management Program, Kenneth Woods Portfolio Management Program and Sustainable Investing Practicum all give students the opportunity to manage multimillion-dollar portfolios, with guidance from seasoned program directors.

“Not only do students have real industry software in the form of Croesus to manage that real money, Concordia also has CIBC as a clearing corporation,” explains Riel. “Our system connects to their back office.” This means students can use Croesus Advisor to see and act upon real-time pricing and transactional data, just as professionals do.

Additionally, instructors can use Croesus Advisor and the up-to-date data it integrates to illustrate investment topics during courses and case studies, according to Erkan Yönder, chair of Concordia’s Department of Finance.

“It is crucial for our department and faculty that our students are prepared with real-life tools that are widely used in the finance industry,” says Yönder. “This highly regarded software will expand students’ access to job opportunities, keeping them updated and ready to succeed in their futures. We greatly appreciate this generous gift.”