Collegeville >> Four Ursinus College business students will take on international competitors the week of April 11 when they travel to Chicago to compete in the next round of the Chartered Financial Analysts Institute’s Research Challenge.
In Chicago, the team will face 50 teams from the Americas in the regional finals, with the goal of being among the two teams that will face finalists from Europe, the Middle East, Africa and Asia in the global finals.
The Ursinus CFA Research Challenge team of Robert Glanville, Gabe Gordon, Ryan Pinter and Gavin Reeves won the 2016 Philadelphia CFA Challenge Feb. 17, competing against finalist teams from the University of Delaware and two separate teams from Elizabethtown College.
The challenge required the teams to prepare a real-world financial analysis of a publicly traded company.
The four came together as a team at the beginning of the school year, after hearing about the challenge in an email from the school.
“I thought this would be a great opportunity to see the world in a smaller, easier environment. I was just trying to open my eyes as to what the world is like with this challenge,” said Gordon.
Pinter agreed, and added that he really enjoys the financials, “more than the accounting part and my economics courses. So, I thought the financial competition would be a cool way to go – a good experience,” he said.
“I was trying to gain some experience and expose myself to what I would probably be doing in my line of work, so I figured it was a good experience and I would take a shot at it,” said Reeves.
The Ursinus team is supported by faculty advisor Eric Parnell and mentor Mike Matorelli.
Initially, the team did not know which company they would be researching, but got to work anyway. They knew how the analysis should be structured and they each had an area of interest. Glanville took risk management, Gordon and Pinter took financials and Reeves took industry and competitive position.
“We kind of allocated what everyone would do so that when we got the company we could just jump right into it,” Gordon said.
In mid-October, the teams across the Philadelphia region found out the company they would be analyzing was Toll Brothers. Through its research each team would recommend the company as either a buy, sell or hold option.
According to Pinter, the team was in consensus right from the start – and saw Toll Brothers as a “buy” option.
“The industry is good, the housing industry is improving, and the financials were all good. We built models to predict their future financials and they all turned out well,” he said.
Each school in the Philadelphia competition analyzed the same company. The first step was a 10-page paper – complete with financials, risks, a background of the industry, as well as an appendix with graphs, charts and other supporting information. Fourteen schools submitted papers, from which four finalists were chosen.
There was no time to celebrate that victory, however – the team had less than one month to prepare its presentation.
“It wasn’t too bad, because we already had all the information compiled so the presentation was basically what our paper already was;, we just had to concentrate on making it look good,” Pinter added.
Gordon said the team was pretty calm before the presentation – talking and making jokes.
Each member credits Ursinus’ curriculum and the size of the college with preparing them for success at the challenge. They said they are used to doing presentations in front of instructors and classmates. They added that Ursinus’ diversified education keeps them informed about what’s happening in the world, something Glanville said was particularly valuable when he was asked a question during the Q&A about a recent banking industry ruling.
“These guys did a really great job – in terms of their poise and ability to communicate,” said Parnell. “The interdisciplinary nature of the curriculum gave them the experience to get up and effectively tell a story about the company.”
As the team prepares for the next round in Chicago, they may not tweak their paper in any way, but they can make improvements to the presentation. The team faces the same 10-minute restriction.
The team received a trophy for its win at the Philadelphia competition, which now sits in Parnell’s office. The team said the real prize comes from the experience itself – the opportunity to network and the real-world, real-time experience.
“It tied everything together you want in a work experience. We’ve learned about the numbers but never really tied it into one big project,” Pinter said.
“As we move into doing interviews, this experience is something the guy waiting behind us, or ahead of us, isn’t going to have had,” Glanville added.
Parnell added that each team member is a campus leader, which he said came through in their presentation.
Glanville, 21 is a junior from Brigantine, N.J., majoring in business/economics. He is a member of the Ursinus football team where he plays defensive lineman. He is also employed on campus.
Gordon, 21 is a senior from Short Hills, N.J., majoring in business/economics, with a minor in computer science. He is a member of Ursinus’ wrestling team, although he did not compete this year. He is also a resident assistant on campus.
Pinter, 22 is a senior from Boyertown, majoring in business/economics. He is a former member of the Ursinus baseball team. He had participated in the Federal Reserve Challenge, a competition that is similar to the CFA Research Challenge.
Reeves, 20 is a junior from Madison, Conn., majoring in applied economics with a concentration in accounting. He is a member of the Ursinus men’s soccer team where he is a forward, and is a member of the Alpha Phi Epsilon fraternity.
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