Team from Alfred University shines at financial analysis competition
A group of Alfred University finance majors, participating for the first time in a competition testing their skills as financial analysts, finished runner-up among five teams from Western New York, receiving glowing remarks from judges who commended them for their knowledge, poise and preparedness.
The team of Ryan Hughes (Olean, NY), Maksym Smirnov (Kiev, Ukraine), Artem Kolisnychenko (Kiev, Ukraine) and Chris Coyle (Livonia, NY) took second their group at the 15th annual Chartered Financial Analyst (CFA) Institute Research Challenge of Western New York, held Saturday, Feb. 15, at Canisius University in Buffalo. The team from Alfred finished behind only Canisius—a perennial power in the competition which has finished first each year and is a past world champion—and ahead of three other schools in its group: Rochester Institute of Technology, St. John Fisher University, and University of Rochester.
The competition brings together the top business, finance and economics students from the region to research a publicly traded company, develop a comprehensive investment recommendation, and then present and defend their analysis to a panel of industry professionals. Teams presented on Allient Inc., this year’s designated company, and made a buy, sell or hold recommendation to the judicial panel. They were judged on analytics, valuation, reporting, writing and presentation skills. Allient is a designer and manufacturer of precision and specialty motion control components and systems for the commercial, industrial, medical, vehicle, aerospace and defense markets.
Each student on Alfred’s team is an officer in the Student Managed Investment Fund (SMIF), a club run through the Alfred University College of Business, in which students manage an investment fund. Started in 1995 with a $100,000 initial investment approved by the Board of Trustees, the fund is now worth more than $1.1 million.
Mark Lewis, associate professor of finance and analytics in Alfred University’s College of Business, served as the team faculty adviser, while alumnus Oliver Wintermantel ’99 MBA, managing director at Evercore, a global independent investment banking advisory firm, served as industry mentor for the Alfred team. Lewis explained that the students’ used knowledge and skills honed in the classroom—as finance majors, they are required to take a course in Securities Analysis, and are currently enrolled in Lewis’ Advanced Investment course—and their participation in SMIF to prepare them for the competition.
“The did a deep dive (into Allient Systems), a way more thorough analysis than they had ever done with SMIF,” Lewis commented, noting that the judges commended the Alfred team for being the only team to perform a reverse discounted cash flow analysis, a valuation technique that uses a company's current stock price to estimate the market's expectations for future cash flow growth.
“Their analysis was thorough, and their oral presentation was excellent. The judges said they have never seen a first-time entry from a university as thorough and with as high-quality analysis as the Alfred team.”
Lewis added that the judges were also impressed with the Alfred students introducing themselves before beginning their presentation. “We teach students to provide introductions before speaking to an audience. Every other team just jumped in. The judges said they normally don’t see that. They were impressed with composure and confidence of our students,” Lewis remarked.
“I could not be more proud. This speaks highly of the quality of our students,” said Lewis, who thanked Jason Morrison, assistant professor of finance, for making the drive to Buffalo to support the Alfred University students in their presentation.