Programme Rationale and Objectives

Investment management as an industry is justified by its ability to design and manage portfolios or solutions tailored to the specific constraints and objectives of investors whether institutional, high-net worth or retail.

Historically, the industry has focused its value-proposal on security selection and left aside two major sources of added-value: asset allocation and risk management.

The progressive realisation of the difficulty of creating value through security selection has fuelled the development of low-margin passive investment vehicles and prompted investment managers to start exploring asset allocation as a source of performance.

The crises at the turn of the millennium and the more recent global financial turmoil have challenged conventional investment wisdom and underscored the need for the profession to redefine itself, adopt state-of-the-art asset allocation and risk management techniques, and shift from promoting products to designing solutions that truly take account of investors’ needs and constraints.

Targeting aspiring entrants and perpetuating the industry’s security selection bias, the typical master’s programmes in finance and investments focus on the basics of financial markets and instruments, on financial statement analysis, and on conventional portfolio theory. As such, they cannot prepare professionals for the challenges facing the investment management industry.

Driven by the evolving requirements of the investment industry and designed for experienced practitioners, the Executive MSc in Risk and Investment Management trains participants to appreciate recent and forthcoming paradigm shifts and equips them with the conceptual and practical tools to improve the organisation of the investment process and optimise asset allocation, portfolio construction, performance measurement, and risk management. Spanning traditional, alternative, and structured investments, and drawing on the latest scientific advances, the programme focuses on dynamic asset allocation and advanced risk management techniques and on the integration of investor needs and constraints in the design of novel solutions for institutional, private and retail investment management.

An Original, Challenging, and Relevant Curriculum

The curriculum devotes considerable attention to the organisation of investment management and to the optimisation of each step in the portfolio management process. It reviews competing investment architectures and thoroughly examines investment policy statements, strategic asset allocation, portfolio construction, tactical asset allocation, and performance measurement and reporting.

It covers the latest theoretical developments in asset pricing and portfolio management and equips participants with the financial modelling and empirical finance tools required to implement research advances in asset-only and asset-liability management solutions.

Taking stock of the rise of alternative and structured forms of investments, it explores their characteristics, asset allocation benefits, and addresses the challenges they create for multi-style multi-class investment.

Going beyond conventional asset allocation and risk management approaches, it delves into advanced risk management techniques and develops a dynamic risk budgeting framework allowing for the integration of ‘hard’ risk constraints in asset allocation.

While the programme is technically challenging, its underlying force and focus are on the business relevance of financial innovation and its uses for investors, whether institutional, high net-worth, or mass-affluent. From this angle, the EDHEC-Risk Institute Executive MSc in Risk and Investment Management allows participants to view all concepts and techniques covered in class from an investor solution perspective.

The Support of a Leading Research Institute

The programme draws upon the considerable resources and industry reputation of EDHEC-Risk Institute, the premier academic centre for industry-relevant financial research. In the framework of six industry-sponsored research programmes and fourteen corporate-endowed research chairs and major strategic research projects, the Institute's team of 90 carries out a wealth of projects around asset allocation and risk management, and implements a multifaceted communications policy towards asset managers and institutional investors.

First-Rate Faculty

Programme faculty consists of renowned specialists in investment management whose collective expertise maps asset pricing, quantitative methods, alternative and structured forms of investments, asset allocation and asset-liability management, portfolio construction, risk management and measurement, performance measurement and analysis. It brings together EDHEC-Risk Institute’s permanent faculty and researchers and adjunct faculty who pursue careers in the financial industry.

Faculty members embody the programme’s unique combination of academic excellence and industry relevance and many of them have had notable influence over investment management concepts and practices through research, executive education, and direct involvement in the financial industry.

• Curriculum

• Faculty

• Programme Audience and Key Benefits

• About EDHEC-Risk Institute

• This programme has been reformatted to appeal to a wider audience and is now organised by EDHEC Business School More...

• Asia-based programme: disclosures in compliance with Singapore's Council for Private Education