Congratulations to JCU – Boler’s CFA Challenge Team on winning this year’s local competition. Team members are Jenna Alpuche, Terry Bechacas, Brandon Callison, Noah Johnston and Mitchel Kotheimer.
The Challenge is global in scope and provides a real world approach to asset valuation and financial analysis. According to the CFA Institute, “the event provides hands-on mentoring and intensive financial analysis training. Students form teams to research and analyze a publicly traded company and compete with students from other schools on a local, regional and global level.”
The competition began last fall and culminated on February 21 where the Boler team defended their position before a panel of three industry practitioners. The firm under consideration was Materion Corporation, formerly Brush Wellman, Inc., a fully vertically integrated manufacturer of beryllium based value added products. The degree of difficulty in determining the intrinsic value of Materion was especially high due to the extremely diverse end markets they serve. End markets spanned everything from aerospace and defence, to medical products, to semi-conductors to the automotive market.
Students on this team have invested between 200 and 250 hours each on this project. Their next step will be competing in New York in the North American competition in late April, and if successful, on to the global competition.
This is an unprecedented third win in a row for the Boler team. No other school has accomplished this in the history of the local competition. Boler teams have won four of the last six competitions.
Professor Jisok Kang and Executive-in-Residence Tony Aveni have supported the team in their preparation for the competition. We are greatful to them and their commitment to our team. Good luck to the team as they represent JCU-Boler in New York for the North American Championship!