2013 Press Releases
GIRC students account themselves well
A UCC team from Accounting and Finance has won the Irish round of the CFA Institute’s Global Investment Research Challenge (GIRC) held at Davys Stockbrokers recently.
The team comprises final year students from the BSc Finance (Maedhbh O’Driscoll, Cian O’Mahony, Fergal Twomey); the BSc Accounting (Hazel Grimes) as well as postgraduate student Sinead Butler. The team’s professional mentor is Ken Power of Killeevan Investment Consultants and Dr. Ray Donnelly of UCC as academic advisor. The team’s financial analysis of Aer Lingus plc enabled them to defeat stiff competition from other national universities and business schools in the Irish final.
The GIRC is a real world investment competition. Over 3,500 students representing more than 650 of the top university business and finance programs worldwide, are participating. The universities assemble teams of three to five business and finance students who work directly with a company in researching and preparing a company analysis and valuation. The teams' final presentations are evaluated by high-profile panels of heads of research, portfolio managers, and chief investment officers from the world’s top firms.
This is the third year in a row that UCC has won the Irish leg of this competition. The team went on to compete against 25 other national winners in the Europe Middle East and Africa (EMEA) area finals in London. Their research report was evaluated by professionals, mainly based in the City, who also evaluated their presentation. They won their semi-final heat and qualified for the final with four other teams. The EMEA area final was won by Wroclaw University of Economics who went on to win the Global Final.
It was notable that the UCC team was the only team in the EMEA finals that included undergraduates with most teams comprising postgraduate students, many of whom were studying for level 2 of the CFA examinations. This makes the achievement of the youthful UCC team all the more remarkable.