After winning the national round in February (read story here), SMU’s Team Greystone Capital has done SMU and the country proud by bringing home the grand prize at the Asia Pacific regional championship held on 15 March in Bangkok, Thailand.  Comprising third-year undergraduates Haruki Chua Una Qiang (BSc Econ, major in Finance), Ian Chua Yong Kwang (BAcc & BBM), John Lim Keng Siang (BBM & BSc Econ), Vedant Daga (BSc Econ major in Finance) and Zhong Yingyi (BSc Econ and BBM), the team had emerged victorious over 250 universities across the region.

Dr Mitchell Van der Zahn, member of the CFA Institute University Outreach Committee and former SMU faculty, sent his heartfelt congratulations to the team commenting that it was a fantastic accomplishment, especially since it has been eight years since Singapore last won the regional championship.

The CFA Institute Research Challenge is an annual global competition that provides university students with hands-on mentoring and intensive training in financial analysis. Each team must research and analyse a given publicly traded company to write a research report on the company with a buy, sell, or hold recommendation.  Thereafter, they are asked to present and defend their analysis to a panel of industry professionals.

Team Greystone Capital, in a well-argued report and presentation, initiated a sell call on private cord blood bank Cordlife with a target price of S$0.70. The target price, representing a downside of 34%, was derived from the team’s “S.E.L.L” thesis; namely, a shaky core business, excessive optimism in primary markets’ growth story, lackluster investments, and low intrinsic value.

Since their first submission in October 2016, the team has put in tremendous effort to improve on their report and presentation for each round of the competition.

Ian Chua, co-leader of the team, said, “We are humbled by the opportunity to represent our university and Singapore in the upcoming global finals in Prague.  The team faced formidable competitors from reputable universities across the Asia Pacific region as well as challenging questions from industry professional judges during the Q&A.  Still, we fought hard and did not buckle under the pressure to emerge Champions."

"We could have achieved this only because of the strong support from the Singapore CFA community, our faculty advisor (Associate Professor John Sequeira) and industry mentors (Mr Simon Ng and Mr David Leow), as well as our student clubs Student-Managed Investment Fund (SMIF), SMU Cognitare and Emerging Markets. Looking ahead, we hope to do Singapore proud once more in the global finals," he added.

Needless to say, the team will continue to fight hard for the upcoming global finals which will take place in Prague, Czech Republic, on 28 April.  Let’s send them our best wishes!  Go SMUggers!

[Featured photo: (Far right) Nick Pollard, Managing Director of CFA Asia Pacific, with the winning SMU team – (L-R) John Lim Keng Siang, Haruki Chua, Zhong Yingyi, Vedant Daga and Ian Chua Yong Kwang.]