Student Team from Barna Management School, Dominican Republic, are CFA Institute Research Challenge 2017 Champions
A team of future investment management professionals from Barna Management School, Dominican Republic, has been named the winner of CFA Institute Research Challenge, an annual global competition that provides university students with hands-on mentoring and intensive training in financial analysis. This year the Research Challenge, now in its 11th year, has seen more than 5,500 students take part from 1,095 universities across the globe over the course of the 2016-2017 competition.
The Research Challenge Regional and Global finals, held in Prague in the Czech Republic, saw 114 university teams and 550 students from the Americas, Asia Pacific, and Europe, Middle East, and Africa, compete to be one of the final four teams. The winning team from Barna Management School, Dominican Republic overcame competition from, Seton Hall University, U.S.A, BI Norwegian Business School, Norway, and Singapore Management University, Singapore.
Bjorn Forfang, Managing Director, Relationship Management, CFA Institute, commented: “Congratulations to the team from Barna Management School, and to all the finalist teams that participated in this year's competition. As the Research Challenge celebrates its 11th anniversary, approximately 10,000 candidates have gone on to pursue the CFA designation since the inception of the competition in 2006. Along with the test of technical knowhow, the competition continues to instil a strong focus on ethics and professional skills to shape the investment professionals of the future and contribute to a more sustainable, purposeful industry."
The winning team presented and defended a report on Copa Holdings, NYSE: CPA, to a panel of investment industry experts including:
- Qutaiba Hawamdeh, CFA: Head of Asset Management, AB Invest
- Gabriela Clivio, CFA: Senior Manager – Business Valuation, Deloitte Advisory
- Florian Esterer, CFA: head of Asset Mgmt Equities, Bank J. Safra Sarasin AG
- Jan Hajek, CFA: Head of Fund Management Division, Erste Asset Management
- Samantha Ho, CFA: Chief Investment Officer, Altus Holdings
Over the past decade, the CFA Institute Research Challenge has seen a steady increase in participation, from 91 participants in 2006 to more than 5,000 this year. The global winners from the past three years came from the University of Waterloo in 2016; Canisius College in 2015; and University of the Philippines – Diliman in 2014.
CFA Institute is the global association of investment professionals that sets the standard for professional excellence and credentials. The organization is a champion for ethical behavior in investment markets and a respected source of knowledge in the global financial community. The end goal: to create an environment where investors’ interests come first, markets function at their best, and economies grow. CFA Institute has over 145,000 members in 163 countries and territories, including 140,000 CFA charterholders, and 148 member societies. For more information, visit www.cfainstitute.org.
About the CFA Institute Research Challenge
The CFA Institute Research Challenge is a global competition that tests the equity research and valuation, investment report writing, and presentation skills of university students. This annual educational initiative promotes best practices in equity research among the next generation of analysts through hands-on mentoring and intensive training in company analysis and presentation skills. Through the course of the competition, which requires hundreds of hours of preparation, participants receive mentoring from a professional research analyst as they analyze a publicly traded company, write a professional research report, and present their research results and recommendations to a high-profile panel of experts. Points are awarded to teams on the basis of their investment case, their poise, and their ability to answer the judges’ questions. The teams are sponsored by local CFA Institute member societies or groups of volunteers, each of which previously hosted country heats of the Challenge. For more information, visit www.cfainstitute.org.