Columbia Business School Takes Top Prize in
University of Maryland's 2007 M&A Competition  

The University of Maryland’s Robert H. Smith School of Business is pleased to announce the winners of its first Mergers & Acquisitions Competition, held October 11-12, 2007. The event, organized by Smith’s MBA Finance Association, challenged teams of MBA students from leading business schools to create and deliver M&A pitches to a panel of executives from Wall Street firms including Credit Suisse and Lehman Brothers. Columbia Business School won first prize, $5,000. University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Business MBA students earned second prize, $2,500; and University of Rochester’s Simon Graduate School of Business students won third prize, $1,000.

“It was our pleasure to host this competition and give MBA students the opportunity to put their skills to the test as they prepare to go out and make deals in a fast-paced, technology-driven, global economy,” said Howard Frank, dean of the Robert H. Smith School of Business. “With mergers and acquisitions, everything comes into play — financials, strategy, presentation — forcing students to bring in everything that they’ve learned. All the teams did a remarkable job with the case they were given under tight deadline pressure.”

Teams were tasked with creating a persuasive argument to a hypothetical case — review the status of an investment banking client, a top homebuilder, and discuss strategic alternatives — while under deadline and using real-time financial data. Most teams worked through the night, gathering data and finalizing their presentations, then pitched their recommendations to a team of judges who selected four teams to advance to a final round. Participants included MBA teams from Carnegie Mellon University, National University of Singapore, Purdue University, University of Chicago, University of Maryland, University of Virginia, and Yale.

The event was supported by title-level sponsors Credit Suisse and Lehman Brothers and gold-level sponsors Black & Decker, Constellation Energy and Marriott International Inc. Representatives from the sponsoring companies served as judges for the competition.

“Everybody did a phenomenal job,” said Lisa E. Beeson, a managing director with Lehman Bros. and a final-round judge. “To get their arms around the information in a really quick period of time and to be thoughtful in their presentation was just unbelievable. I was very impressed with all the teams.”

“The competition was fun and entertaining and a good chance for students to learn about a specific industry, but also extremely relevant if they do want to get into investment banking,” said Credit Suisse associate Greg Gordon, a first-round judge and 2006 alumnus of the Smith School.