Morgan Stanley’s Institute for Sustainable Investing and North-western University’s Kellogg School of Management announced the team from the Indian Institute of Management Bangalore as one of the top 3 contestants at the 2016 Morgan Stanley Sustainable Investing Challenge. The team from IIM Bangalore was one of top 10 finalist teams competing in the Challenge at Morgan Stanley’s Hong Kong offices on Friday, April 15. The 10 finalist teams were selected from 104 investment prospectuses targeting sustainability issues in 32 countries. 
Akshay Soni, Archit Jain, Dinkar Mohta and Swati Kanojia, from the PGP 2015-17 batch, presented their investment proposal with 9 other finalist teams across the world. The team from IIM Bangalore went through a series of evaluations in Hong Kong by some of the top investment professionals across the world including the executives from World Bank, Warburg Pincus, BlackRock and TriLinc Global etc. The team emerged as one of the top three investment ideas leaving behind the teams from top business schools like Harvard Business School, London Business School, and Kellogg School of Management etc. It is the first time a team from any Indian business school has made it to this global event and the team is excited to see many global investors appreciating their investment idea. 

“Our presentation clearly articulated the problem of waste management at a national level, a potential solution, and an investment model that could finance the solution at scale with measurable, direct outcomes and an attractive market-rate financial return. The investment vehicle ‘Clean India Structured Note’ integrated environmental, social and government considerations into a quality investment strategy capable of value creation,” said Soni. 

Dr. Charan Singh, RBI chair professor of Economics at IIM Bangalore and the team’s academic mentor, expressed his appreciation for the ideas presented by the team on improving the waste management system in India. According to him, the financing platform proposed by the team was in tandem with the growing emphasis on ‘Swachh Bharat Abhiyan’ by the Government of India.