On the 12th of June, two of my economics classmates and I started our internship at JB Securities, one of the leading Investment Management companies in Sri Lanka and a founding member of the Colombo Stock Exchange (CSE). We were given this opportunity by the CEO Murtaza Jafferjee, a friend of my dad, who wanted to give us a practical experience of what it was like to work in this field.

We started every day by going into a general meeting hosted by Murtaza to discuss the prices of certain stocks, what he expected to change, and the reasons for that change. After that, we would usually talk to Murtza to discuss the day’s agenda and what assignments he wanted us to do that day. These assignments would usually revolve around accounting and get us to work on our Excel skills as this would be a very valuable tool if we were to go into management. On most days we would also sit in and observe calls that the CEO and other senior representatives would have with company various companies. We did this to gain a sense of what specific things JB Finance was looking for (such as quarterly earnings, revenue, profit margins, etc.) in order to predict the profitability of their current or even prospective clients. We joined the calls with companies in the real estate industry such as Prime Recidency, the automotive industry such as Toyota, and many more. Although throughout the meetings we would mostly just observe, after they would finish we would meet with Murtaza to discuss what our personal take on the company was and what we learned. There was one day in the first week when we even went on a field trip to a group of Access storage facilities for Michelin as well as Toyota to asses the sites and their quality in person.

Overall this was an amazing experiment that taught me a lot about a magnitude of financial topics such as stocks, bonds, and futures, strengthened my accounting skills, and most importantly, gave me an insight into the world of investment banking/management which solidified my interest in pursuing a career in this industry.

 

Left to Right: Yoosuf Name, Vinuda Weerasinghe, Mr. Murtaza Jafferjee (JB CEO), and Akash Sellamuttu (Me)