King William's College and Thomas Miller Investment were delighted to launch their combined Share Race initiative in October. This extra-curricular project will see around sixty sixth form students divided into teams and pitted against each other in a six month race, investing a virtual £100,000 portfolio into ten FTSE 100 stocks with a minimum number of ongoing trades each month.

There will be regular interim update reports to the nominated Judging Panel and a final presentation on 13th March 2014 will award prizes for the best overall performing portfolio and the best set of student team presentations along the way.

Riaan Rierkert, Head of the Economics Department at King William's College, commented that "the Race initiative gives the students a great opportunity to apply their macro-economic knowledge to equity portfolio management". Tom Richards, Director and Head of Private Investment Management (Offshore) at Thomas Miller Investment, noted that whilst overall performance would certainly be important, "the ability to deliver well-prepared presentations and provide justification for their investment choices was also key". He added that given the quality of the student questions at the launch event, "the staff team had an above average chance of winning the wooden spoon!"