Saturday, November 16, 2013

Chicago Booth Claims MBA Stock Picker Victory

CHAPEL Hill, N.C. (TheStreet) -- The University of Chicago's Booth School of Business defeated 14 of the nation's top MBA programs Friday in a stockpicker competition in Chapel Hill, N.C.

Students Kyle Akin, Aaron Bianco and Mac Elatab cruised to a unanimous No. 1 performance in the final round of the Alpha Challenge as judges from various asset management firms favored the Booth team's mock pitch to take a long position on DigitalGlobe (DGI) and a short position on GenCorp (GY).

The event, hosted by the University of North Carolina, showcased top student talent, many of whom said they hoped to eventually work in investment management.

It was a "great" contest with a high level of competition and challenging questions from the judges, Elatab said. When asked if his Booth team would celebrate the victory, Elatab chuckled and said, "I think there's a Tar Heels game in town." Each business school represented consisted of three MBA students, who received a universe of 90 publicly traded companies on Nov. 3 and submitted by Nov. 11 a power point presentation pitching one company to "short" and one company to hold "long." Friday morning featured a preliminary round of 15 teams, including Yale University, University of Virginia's Darden School of Business -- who finished second and third, respectively -- UNC's Kenan-Flagler Business School and Columbia University, among others. The 15 teams were split into four different groups, in which they presented a 15-minute verbal pitch and answered judges' questions for an additional 20. The top team from each group advanced to the final round. Judges throughout the tournament represented buy-side firms, including Fidelity Investments, T. Rowe Price, Carlson Capital, William Blair, and others. Shares of DigitalGlobe, a provider of government and commercial earth imagery products, gained 3.6% to close Friday at $36.81. Aerospace and defense manufacturer GenCorp tacked on 0.4% to 17.69. -- Written by Joe Deaux in Chapel Hill, N.C. >Contact by Email. Follow @JoeDeaux

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