The seventh annual Joseph M. Wikler Finance Case Competition took place on April 16, 2010, at the University of Maryland’s Robert H. Smith School of Business. The competition, which is open to juniors and seniors from the BMGT 440 Advanced Financial Management class, began with nine teams selected by the instructors of the Fall 2009 and Spring 2010 sections.

MEDIA ALERT: February 3, 2010 Attention: automotive, technology, and green living reporters/editors ELECTRIC CAR HISTORIAN, BUSINESS PROFESSOR AVAILABLE FOR COMMENT  ON CHEVY VOLT, AUTO INDUSTRY

College Park, Md. – November 11, 2009 – The University of Maryland was recognized as No. 16 in the world for the strength of its faculty and quality of research in business and economics in the 2009 Academic Ranking of World Universities (ARWU) released Nov. 4. The rankings are compiled by the Center for World-Class Universities of Shanghai Jiao Tong University in China. The University of Maryland also ranked No. 17 in the broader field of social sciences, which includes business and economics.

The controversy over executive compensation practices has generated a lot of heated conversations in the media and around the water cooler. On November 2, under the lights of camera crews from C-span, CNBC, CNN and Bloomberg, the Smith School’s new Center for Financial Policy shone a spotlight on this controversial issue at its first roundtable discussion, “Executive Compensation—Practices and Reform.” The event featured keynote speaker Kenneth Feinberg, a well-known lawyer and mediator recently appointed to be the Obama administration’s special master for compensation.

In the wake of the financial crisis of last fall, the Obama Administration appointed “pay czar” Kenneth Feinberg to work with the Department of the Treasury to sort out the way top executives at firms are compensated and what reforms should be made. Just last week, Feinberg came out with a plan to drastically slash compensation at seven companies bailed out by the federal government. But is focusing on reforming executive compensation barking up the wrong tree?

Thursday, Oct. 29, 2009, 7:30 p.m.; Sunday, Nov. 1, 2009, 7:30 a.m.; Monday, Nov. 2, 2009, 4:30 a.m. Financial System Reforms – Executive Pay

College Park, Md. – October 26, 2009 – The University of Maryland’s Robert H. Smith School of Business today announced the winners of its third annual Mergers & Acquisitions Competition, held October 22-23. The event, organized by Smith’s MBA Finance Association, challenged 10 teams of MBA students from leading business schools to craft and present M&A pitches to a panel of executive and faculty judges. The student team from the Leonard N. Stern School of Business at New York University won the $5,000 first prize.

College Park, Md. – October 12, 2009 — The University of Maryland’s Robert H. Smith School of Business will launch a new Center for Financial Policy on Nov. 2 with a Roundtable on Executive Compensation event in Washington, D.C. Kenneth Feinberg, Special Master for Compensation of the U.S. Department of the Treasury, will keynote the event, which will explore executive compensation practices and policy reforms.

When you think of on-campus dining, you probably envision plastic trays, a long buffet, and an endless supply of chocolate milk. On September 22, 2009, however, undergraduate students in the Robert H. Smith School of Business Finance Fellows program were gathered in Van Munching Hall’s Executive Meeting Room in a different context—a formal networking dinner with finance professionals. In addition to an evening with opportunities to connect with professionals in the finance industry, students were dressed in business formal and treated to a catered sit-down dinner.  

“This is the problem at hand, and it does need a solution,” said Sam Germaine, an associate at ETF Venture Funds who traveled from Philadelphia to attend the Robert H. Smith School of BusinessThoughtLeadership@Smith series event on Executive Compensation and Public Policy on September 18.