NYU
Stern MBA Team Wins
Cornell's First Stock Pitch Challenge
A team
of three MBA2s from NYU Stern won the inaugural Johnson School MBA Stock
Pitch Challenge held at Cornell University on April 3-4, 2003. The winning
team was comprised of members of the Association of Investment Management
(AIM), a Stern MBA student organization. The team, which included students
Frank Boroch, Christopher Horvers and Sami Kohan, topped competitors
from nine other schools, including Columbia, Cornell, Fuqua (Duke),
Harvard, Sloan (MIT), University of Chicago, University of Michigan
and Wharton.
"We are pleased that the Stern team prevailed over such strong competition, " said Thomas F. Cooley, Dean of NYU Stern. "My congratulations to Sami, Frank, Christopher and the AIM club."
The goal of the Johnson School MBA Stock Pitch Challenge is to showcase an MBA student's ability to identify attractive stocks and to convince a panel of judges of their merit. Such skills are essential to aspiring investment analysts. While many case competitions exist for students interested in consulting careers, this competition is the first for those interested in investment analysis as a career path.
The nine teams were narrowed to a final four by a panel of judges, which consisted of members of both the investment and academic communities. In the end, the Stern team prevailed over a team from Cornell's own Johnson Graduate School of Management, which took second place.
The winning team collected a cash prize of $3,000, which will be split among the three members.
"I
think the key for us was that we stuck to our guns despite the aggressive
questioning from the judges," said Sami Kohan, co-president of
AIM and one of the Stern team members. "The final company we presented
was highly controversial and we had predicted bankruptcy for it. We
felt we could back it up with the material we had learned in Professor
Ed Altman's bankruptcy class as well as in Professor Aswath Damodaran's
equity valuation class."
