CFA Institute Research Challenge
The Challenge is an educational initiative in which leading industry professionals mentor and then test business and finance students on their skills in researching and valuing a publicly traded company. The German CFA Society conducted the CFA Institute Research Challenge Germany for the first time in 2010.
The Process
Rules and Timeline
The Challenge began in October 2010 and ended with a presentation from each student team on February 1, 2011. The research challenge consists of the following components:
- Analysis of a Public Company: All the teams research the same publicly traded company, which has been selected by the German CFA Society. This includes a question and answer session with company management.
- Mentoring by a Professional Research Analyst: Each team is mentored by a CFA Charterholder with expertise in research analysis, who reviews and critiques the team's written report.
- Presentation of valuation results to a high-profile panel of CFA charterholders and executives from the financial industry experts: The winning team will then be selected based on the best combined scores for the written report and the presentation.
- The winner will participate in the CFA Institute Global Challenge for the EMEA-region in Madrid and, should the team win in Madrid, will be part of the Global Challenge in Omaha, Nebraska, USA.
Participants
These universities have taken part:
- Mannheim University
- European Business School
- Goethe Business School
- Hamburg University
- Frankfurt Business School
The Winners
The winning team from Goethe Business School: Sven Lindner, Dominik Jochem, Benjamin Goy, Natalia Nesterenko and their mentors Christian Roth und Dr. Michael Thomas, CFA. The team was coordinated by Prof. Dr. Andreas Hackethal, Dean and Chair of Finance, Goethe Business School.
On TV (Deutsches Anlegerfernsehen, in German)
The Jury
The jury of the CFA Institute Research Challenge Germany consisted of: Dr. Matthias Meitner, CFA, Harald Bareit, CFA, Sebastian Kordt, CFA, Helge Axel Müller, CFA, Falko Hörnicke, CFA
Contributors
The Investment Research Challenge Germany was sponsored by
The company subject to the analysis and which supported us with their CFO was Pfeiffer Vacuum.
