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UW Students Take Top Spot in Investment Competition

By Wisconsin School of Business

January 15, 2014

A team of UW students recently beat out teams from 10 other U.S. universities to win the J.P. Morgan Inaugural Midwest Investment Banking Case Challenge in Chicago. The UW-Madison team bested students from Northwestern University and the University of Notre Dame to earn the top spot.

The team consisted of two Wisconsin School of Business students, Tim Schlidt and Terry Mullin, College of Engineering student Max Vielmetti and College of Letters & Science student Michal Miernowski. All of the students are part of the business school’s Investment Banking Club.

Schlidt says the experience of developing and presenting recommendations to a panel of investment bankers brought his classroom learning to life.

“This competition certainly expanded upon what my classes have already taught me,” Schlidt says. “Often, in the classroom, we learn about the theory behind finance. This competition showed how it is put into practice.”

The competition required students to create fairness opinion presentations to a client company, which meant they had to assess two proposed acquisitions, perform valuation analyses to determine if the offer prices were fair, and present the final analysis to a panel.

The team was coached and assisted by three UW-Madison alumni and finance professionals: Adam Kroll (BBA ’97), Michael Barina (BS ’05), and Meg Baptie (BA ’12). Schildt says each played a part in the team’s success.

“Had we not had proactive alumni, we would not been afforded this kind of opportunity,” Schildt says. “Meg was the one who initially recommended we participate in the competition and Mike, along with Adam, gave great advice throughout the process, helping perfect our presentation that led us to our victory.”


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