Columbia Business School Takes Top Prize
in
University of Maryland M&A Competition
College Park, Md. October 16,
2007 The University of Marylands
Robert H. Smith School of Business today
announced the winners of its first
Mergers & Acquisitions Competition, held
October 11-12. The event, organized by
Smiths 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 Rochesters 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 theyve 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.
More information about the
competition is available at
http://www.smith.umd.edu/macompetition.
About the University of Marylands
Robert H. Smith School of Business
The Robert H. Smith School of
Business is an internationally
recognized leader in management
education and research. One of 14
colleges and schools at the University
of Maryland, College Park, the Smith
School offers undergraduate, full-time
and part-time MBA, executive MBA,
executive MS, PhD and executive
education programs, as well as outreach
services to the corporate community. The
school offers its degree, custom and
certification programs in learning
locations on three continents North
America, Europe and Asia.
