5th Annual JPMorgan Mergers & Acquisitions Challenge Winners

Kellogg Investment Banking Club sweeps 5th Annual JPMorgan Challenge

Members of the Kellogg School Investment Banking Club swept the 5th Annual JPMorgan Mergers & Acquisitions Challenge, which was held recently at the company's offices in downtown Chicago.

Four years out of five, Kellogg has beaten its competition, the University of Chicago Graduate School of Business. This year Kellogg won the overall competition and all four individual team places.

"This is a great validation for the finance program at Kellogg, considering that the reputation of the University of Chicago's business school is very strong in Wall Street," said Justin Crotty '04, one of 48 Kellogg contestants and a co-chair of the Kellogg School Investment Banking Club.

The 32-hour competition involved working on a case created by JP Morgan. Eight Kellogg teams, composed of full-time and part-time MBA students, acted as buy-side bankers, advising their "clients" on valuation and bidding strategies on a property for sale by a conglomerate.

Working from more than 200 pages of case details, the Kellogg students applied their knowledge of finance, marketing, strategy and economics to present a complete solution to their theoretical client.

"Everything we learned in class fell into place as we worked through the case," Crotty said.

The judges --- who included Kellogg faculty Artur Raviv, Alan E. Peterson Distinguished Professor of Finance, and Mitchell A. Petersen, Glen Vasel Associate Professor of Finance --- awarded the Kellogg team $3,200.

Members of the winning teams are Alejandro Capote, Josh T. Carson, Pedro Cesar, Nathan Chandrasekaran, Oyetunde O. Fadele, Dan Kaplan, Kelly Li, Paul Lim, David Lubeck, Gabriele Lucano, Miguel Machado, Vadim Marchuk, Kristoffel Meulen, Sanjeev Mordani, Carlo Portes, Thomas O. Schoenwaelder, Jerry Zhengyu Tang, Kenny Tucker, Joost R. van Rens, Stephen Weiland, Wonita Williams, Michael Yoshino, Todd M. Yost and Selo Zoralioglu, all Class of '05.