Dr. Gamini Wickremasinghe, Chairman Securities & Exchange Commission of Sri Lanka handing over the trophy and prize to winning team leader Thilan Kiridena from Royal Institute, Colombo. Also in the picture is Murtaza Jafferjee, President CFA. |
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The CFA - Financial Analyst Competition originated with the aim of aligning academic knowledge with real world application. The exercise aims to introduce students to the dynamic and intellectual task of investigating and understanding sectors of the economy and the linkages of such to the financial markets. The competition provides an opportunity for CFA members currently working as portfolio managers, chief investment officers, heads of research, CEO's of financial Institutions and other CFA charter holders to interact and share their knowledge with aspiring investment professionals. Thereby helping students compliment their academic knowledge with experience in a real world setting, developing interest in securities analysis.
This year, the local competition is part of the global investment challenge organized by the CFA Institute among student teams from the world's top Universities, business schools and finance programs. In brief students write an equity research report on a public traded company and present their findings to a panel of judges. The teams were judged on a written report and a presentation. Thorough out the competition leading investment professionals volunteered as mentors and judges, guiding these students to learn best practices in equity research and corporate analysis.
The competition was endorsed by the Securities and Exchange Commission of Sri Lanka. The SEC's support in the competition by way of sponsorship and nomination of a SEC representative in the panel of judges helped enhance the event.
The focus of the competition was on learning best practices in equity research and formulating a convincing argument to defend conclusions. Each team was mentored by a CFA member to conduct in-depth analysis on the selected company. The winning team was selected based on the thoroughness of its analysis and knowledge of the company rather than their predictions on the stock price.
Research reports were assessed on a specified scoring criteria giving weight-age to specific areas such as investment summary, valuation, business description, industry overview, competitive positioning, financial analysis and investment risks. The judges submitted a detailed summary of each team's performance in the written report.
The scoring criteria for the presentations were based on the presentation material, argument with data effectively supporting recommendations, poise confidence and ability to convince, and the Q & A session.
This year's competition saw the participation of 10 teams with 05 members per team inclusive of the team leader. Apart from the CFA mentor assigned to each team the participating Universities/Business schools were required to nominate a faculty member as a resource person who could spend a designated amount of time with the team guiding them.
A template was provided by the CFA Institute so that all research reports were uniform. The five teams that received the highest scores on the research reports were called upon for the presentation.
The competition started by the handing over of reference material on 1st July, followed by a kick off meeting. The kick-off meeting was a full day session introducing all participants to the competition followed by a session on Industrial analysis, company analysis, report writing and presentation skills and an overview of the Telecom industry.
Sri Lanka Telecom was the company chosen as the Company to be analysed this year. The top management teams of Sri Lanka Telecom and Mobitel made a presentation to the challenging teams which gave the students an insight in to the industry dynamics and the future prospects of the company. This half a day session gave the students the ability to interact with the company management and ask questions relevant to their analysis.
The final reports were handed over to CFA on 30th September, followed by the finalists making their presentation on 7th November. The competition was spanned over four and a half months.
The benefits of the competition were obvious to the participating students as well as the Universities and Business schools. The prestige of the competition will set the participating Institution apart from other business schools and help build their image as institutions that strive to bridge the gap between academic knowledge and real world application. Further this competition would set off healthy competitive rivalry amongst the Universities and business schools in the future. The competition also gives the opportunity for the selected company to help build the next generation of Finance professionals thus helping to set the platform for a vibrant financial market.
The highlight of this year's competition is that the winning team at the local level has the ability to advance to the regional competition to be held in Singapore in February 2009. Regional winners will advance to the Global finale being held in April 2009 in London.
Winning Team -ROYAL INSTITUTE OF COLOMBO
Mr. Thilan Kiridena - Team Leader, Ms. Maliindri De Alwis, Mr. Akvan Gajanayake,
Mr. Nadeen Kumarasinghe & Mr. Kanishka De Silva
Joint runners up
UNIVERSITY OF SRI JAYAWARDENAPURA
Mr. Niroshan Shellahewa - Team Leader, Ms.Madusha Perera, Ms. Ishani Jayasinghe, Ms. Dilini Udugama Koral & Mr. Ruwan Lasantha
AND
ASIA PACIFIC INSTITUTE OF INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY (APIIT)
Mr. Thaarique Sidique - Team Leader, Mr.Chrishankar Janathanan, Mr. Rameez Javeed, Ms. Rosanna Rubera & Ms. Dilini Dayartane
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