Lock, Stock & Trade (LST) is an annual entrepreneurship event, which aims to inspire the younger generation towards entrepreneurship. At LST the audience learnt about diverse business opportunities; heard from leading entrepreneurs and financiers about how to start and grow companies; and matched their investment savvy against professionals in a simulated stock trading game. Being the only primary market stock trading game is India LST has been attracting immense participation from corporate world as well as reputed business schools.
S.P. Jain Institute of Management & Research (SPJIMR) recognizes the pivotal role of entrepreneurship as a driver of growth in an open market economy. SPJIMR is one among five founding partners of the National Entrepreneurship Network (NEN), initiated by the Wadhwani Foundation. Elaborating on SPJIMR’s entrepreneurship efforts, the Dean Dr Manesh Shrikant mentions “Entrepreneurship and networking define our DNA at SPJIMR. We intend to leverage the opportunity provided by NEN to extend the scale and scope of our entrepreneurship curriculum for family businesses, executives and the student community.” LST is a model example of productive collaboration between SPJIMR and NEN.
At this one day event the SPJIMR student teams representing the entrepreneur and investment banker present carefully selected real life private company profiles to the audience. These companies are private businesses of the Family Managed Business (FMB) students of SPJIMR. These companies are open for evaluation and trading by the audience who acting as investors mock ‘invest’ in shares of their choice. The stocks are allotted through bidding and the ultimate stock prices are determined by the market forces. At the end of the day the winning ‘investors’ are those with highest value portfolios and the winning company that which has the highest market capitalization. The game provides opportunity for many a player to bid, trade and build their portfolio, and experience….the Dalal Street excitement!
This year the winning company was Atlanta Ltd, the upcoming infrastructure firm. The runners up were Anmol jwellers Ltd and Eco Rent a Car Ltd. These companies were trusted as the best investments by the budding investors and had the largest market capitalization.
In LST 2006 the attractions in addition to the substantial cash prizes were, the keynote address by Mr Chetan Maini, Deputy Chairman, Reva Electric Car Company. A distinguished panel consisting of Ajay Hattangdi, Senior VP, Silicon Valley Bank (Global), Prof. Ed Rubesch, Faculty for Entrepreneurship at Thammasat B-School, Bangkok, Mahesh Murthy, CEO Pinstrom and founder Passion Fund, R. Sriram, CEO Crosswords, Aashish Bhinde, Senior VP, Avendus were present for the panel dicussion which added new dimensions to entrepreneurship and was an eye opener for budding entrepreneurs.