Nittany Lion Fund Appoints New Student Executive Board

UNIVERSITY PARK, PA (January 24, 2008) – As the previous year's executive board prepares for their careers on Wall Street, a new group of undergraduate students has taken over management of the Nittany Lion Fund LLC, a $4.5 million student-managed investment portfolio at Penn State's Smeal College of Business.

Each year, the new leadership is appointed by the previous executive board in consultation with J. Randall Woolridge, Smeal professor of finance and chief executive officer of the Nittany Lion Fund.

Ryan Limor, a junior Schreyer Honors Scholar majoring in finance and economics, has taken over as president of the fund for 2008 from Morgan Samet, a senior Schreyer Honors Scholar majoring in finance. Limor previously served as lead analyst for the Nittany Lion Fund's financials and energy sectors and has been a fund manager since January 2006. He has also served on the fund's new investment committee and completed internships with BlackRock, Leaf Financial Co., and Smith Barney.

The Nittany Lion Fund's new vice president is Jake Ettore, a Smeal junior majoring in finance and economics. Ettore has served as lead analyst for the telecommunications sector and as a lead and associate analyst for the information technology sector. He has also grown his personal equity portfolio to $20,000 from an initial investment in 2001 of $3,500.

Lee Mooney, a Smeal finance junior, is the fund's new secretary. Mooney has served as an associate analyst in the Nittany Lion Fund's utilities sector.

Taking over as treasurer of the fund is John Brozick, a Smeal sophomore majoring in finance. Brozick previously served the Nittany Lion Fund as associate analyst for the information technology sector and as director of its Portfolio Analysis Group.

Every student appointed to a leadership position was previously involved with the Penn State Investment Association or the Nittany Lion Fund as a general analyst for at least one year. Because the appointments run January to January, seniors may not be appointed to a leadership position and generally only students in their junior year may serve on the executive board.

The rest of the management team includes four directors—of portfolio analysis, equity research, technical analysis, and compliance—as well as a lead analyst and an associate analyst for each of the 10 different sectors. Also part of the management team are five MBA students who head the Economic Analysis Group.

All 17 of the outgoing senior fund managers will graduate from Smeal in May and have secured jobs on Wall Street.

Among them is Samet, who has accepted a position with Goldman Sachs in the Financial Institutions Group of the firm's Investment Banking Division. The former vice president of the fund, John Borys, will work in the Media and Telecommunications Group of Merrill Lynch's Investment Banking Division. He will be joined at Merrill Lynch by former fund treasurer Alex High, who will work in the firm's Private Equity Origination Group within its Global Private Client Division. And former Nittany Lion Fund secretary Matt Simonetti will work for Citi's Global Structured Solutions Group in the firm's Capital Markets Structuring and Origination Division.

Unlike most of the approximately 200 other student-managed investment funds around the country, the Nittany Lion Fund did not come from a university endowment. Rather, 67 individual investors have each placed at least $25,000—and as much as $250,000—under the control of the student fund managers.

Members of the Penn State Investment Association manage every aspect of the fund, including equity research, stock selection, asset allocation, portfolio management, trading, compliance, and investor relations.

For more on the Nittany Lion Fund, visit www.smeal.psu.edu/fund.