Ivey students were top pick at worldwide MBA stock picking competition

Three Ivey MBA students won $10,000 and also earned stock-picking advice from an international panel of investors at the inaugural Ben Graham Centre’s Stock Picking Competition.

The winning team of Omid Ameri, Catherine Yi and Matt Vines was announced at the Ben Graham Centre's 2014 Value Investing Conference in Toronto on April 8.

“It was good to have practitioners judging us and giving us advice. It was a valuable opportunity,” said Yi.

The finalist teams also attended the conference where they learned from keynote speakers in investment management and had an opportunity to network with prominent value investors.

Ivey Professor George Athanassakos, who holds the Ben Graham Chair in Value Investing, organized the contest as a means of exposing students to the value investing approach of stock analysis.

“The students learn about the principles of value investing that are practiced by some of the most successful investors of our time, as well as have an opportunity to gain advice and insights from experienced value investors,” he said. “It’s a great learning experience for developing investment-making skills.”

The contest was open to MBA schools around the world and 17 teams from schools in Canada, the U.S., Europe, Asia and Australia participated. In round one, teams submitted research reports in January on their assigned stock. The reports were evaluated by industry professionals including Reyer Barel, MBA ’08, Investment Analyst at Fairfax Financial Holdings Ltd.; Ajay Gopal, MBA ’13, Senior Credit Analyst, East Coast Fund Management Inc.; Scott Gryba, MBA ’09, Research Associate, BMO Capital Markets; Achilleas Taxildaris, MBA ’12, Fund Analyst, Morningstar; and Edgar Vergara, MBA ’13, High Yield Capital Markets, RBC Capital Markets. This way, the 17 teams were narrowed down to three finalist teams.

The three finalist teams, Ivey Business School at Western University, Rotman School of Management at the University of Toronto, and Tepper School of Business at Carnegie Mellon University, then pitched a new stock to a panel of judges on April 7 at Ivey's Tangerine Leadership Centre in Toronto. Judges included Mohnish Pabrai, Managing Partner, Pabrai Investment Funds (representing the U.S.); Wayne Peters, Chairman and Chief Investment Officer, Peters MacGregor Capital Management (representing Australia); and Kim Shannon, President and CIO, Sionna Investment Managers (representing Canada).