Business and Investment Club come out champions at stock valuation competition
A team from the Business and Investment Club at Wellington School of Business and Government have won this year’s National Company Valuation Competition.
The competition, held in September at the University of Auckland, saw teams given just over one week to determine the value of telecommunications company Spark and produce a recommendation on whether investors should buy, sell or hold shares in the company. Teams then had to deliver a presentation justifying their recommendations to a panel of judges that included David Chalmers (Chief Financial Officer (CFO) of Spark), Will Word (Partner at Deloitte) and Helen Lu (Professor at the University of Auckland).
The team made up of students Siddha Ganesan, Campbell Caird, Dion Blackmore and Craig Fernandez, beat out teams from University of Auckland and University of Canterbury to claim the winning title. They were chosen to attend the competition after winning the Business and Investment Club’s own stock valuation competition earlier this year.
“In our research we found that Spark was a company that was multifaceted and constantly evolving to remain competitive in an increasingly complex industry,” says Campbell. “A highlight of the competition was discussing with the CFO of Spark the environmental factors we had identified in our presentations and him explaining management’s perception of these factors and their plan to tackle them.”
"The competition enabled us to combine our various skill sets as a team. It was a great opportunity to work with likeminded peers and practically apply knowledge from our studies,” says Craig. “The win was definitely a bonus and I would encourage other students to have a go at competitions generally in the future."