By Nathaniel Luce
A four-man team of MBA students from the Vanderbilt Owen Graduate School of Management finished second in the Rolanette and Berdon Lawrence Finance Case Competition held on April 17, 2009. The Freeman School of Business at Tulane University hosted the event. Each year since 1997, graduate students from some of the top MBA programs have met to showcase their skills in finance, case analysis, and presentation. Owen students took home the first-place prize in 1997, 2006, and 2008.
All teams had a tight timeframe of five hours to study the case and come up with responses. The case focused on a private equity company trying to determine whether it should take a portfolio company (an oilfield services/technology company) public. If it did, how would it address qualitative and quantitative aspects of that situation, such as costs and benefits, and the continuation of rapid growth? A panel of three investment bankers judged their efforts. The Owen team of Chip Bierbaum, Lucas Hohnstein, Nolan Pittman, and Matt Hancock constructed two valuation models and prepared a 25-slide PowerPoint presentation.
“Our valuation during the competition came within two percent of the actual IPO enterprise valuation upon listing,” says Matt Hancock.
The team received a trophy and an invitation for Owen students to return to the competition next year. The Rice team was the first-place winner from the field of eight.
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