Kellogg School Finance Department receives $1 million grant

12/19/2006 - Evanston, Ill.– The trustees of CME Trust, joined by Chicago Mayor Richard M. Daley, recently announced $10 million in grant commitments to 20 universities, schools and nonprofit organizations. The Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University will receive $1 million over four years in support of derivatives and capital markets education.

“One of the salient goals of CME Trust is to make the Chicago area the center of financial market education,” said Leo Melamed, CME Trust trustee and Chairman Emeritus of CME. “By making large, multi-year commitments, we are strategically investing in some of Chicago’s most effective university programs, schools and nonprofit agencies. We are proud that CME Trust is launching its charitable giving in such a significant way.”

The Kellogg School of Management and Northwestern University are uniquely positioned, both globally and within the Chicago region, to promote derivatives and capital markets research and education. With the launch of a new Asset Management Practicum, Kellogg MBA students will gain a more sophisticated experience in capital markets. A new Kellogg School PhD course and fellowships focus on derivatives and related research. The grant also supports a new undergraduate certificate program in finance, offering a sequence of advanced class offerings to highly qualified Northwestern undergraduates.

Kellogg MBA students in the new Asset Management Practicum, which will launch in spring 2007, will manage a portion of the Kellogg School’s endowment. The courses will combine investment theory with exposure to leading practitioners. MBA students will rotate across roles of industry analysts, hedge fund fund-of-funds managers, traders, quantitative analysts, and portfolio managers.

Kellogg faculty and PhD students are actively advancing derivatives-related research. This includes a breadth of applications – for example in energy markets, Federal government liabilities, and portfolio choice – as well as advances in analytic and numerical pricing. In addition to providing a PhD-level course focusing on derivatives, the grant will also assist with funding research fellowships in support of work on this topic.

About the CME Trust
Chicago Mercantile Exchange Trust was established by CME in 1969, under the direction of its chairman, to provide financial protection to customers in the event a CME member firm became insolvent or unable to meet its obligations to its customers. However, no CME customer has ever suffered losses due to a member’s adverse financial condition. In 2005, the CME Trust received approval to distribute the net income of the Trust to public charities. The trustees of the CME Trust are Craig S. Donohue, Terrence A. Duffy, Leo Melamed, William P. Miller II, James E. Oliff, Howard J. Siegel, and John F. Sandner.

About the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University
The Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University was founded in 1908 and is home to a renowned research-based faculty and MBA students from around the globe. The Kellogg School includes the Full-time, Part-time and Executive MBA programs and the non-degreed Executive Education Program. The school offers three joint degree programs: the JD-MBA, MD-MBA and MEM-MBA. Additionally, the Kellogg School has alliances with business schools in Europe, Asia, the Middle East and Canada. The Kellogg School is consistently ranked among the best in the world for business education and is widely regarded as the world’s leading marketing school.