Toronto CFA Society has crowned Wilfrid Laurier University as equity research champions in the Inaugural Investment Research Challenge.

Laurier, based in Waterloo, Ont., competed against nine student teams from universities across the province in the two-tiered challenge.

Carleton University’s Sprott School of Business, based in Ottawa, earned second place in the competition.

The challenge designed to teach business school students best practices in equity research. As part of the competition, Toronto CFA Society chose a public company, Glacier Media Inc., to be the subject of the student research reports.

Each team was provided with an industry mentor to aid them in the competition.

The top four teams selected — Sprott School of Business, the University of Ottawa’s Telfer School of Management, Wilfrid Laurier University and University of Waterloo — presented their research reports to a panel of Toronto industry professionals.

The panel members included: James Donegan, OMERS; Harry Marmer, Hillsdale Investment Management; Rossa O’Reilly, CIBC World Markets; Ralf Rank, Brookfield Renewable Power; Kim Shannon, Sionna Investment Managers; and Brian Shaw.

The champion team was determined based upon the best combined score for the written report and presentation and will qualify for the CFA Institute Regional Investment Research Challenge in New York City to compete against teams from schools across the Americas in March 2010. Winning teams then proceed to the Global Finals to be held in Hong Kong in April 2010.

“I think that confidence was a key driver for us. We set out to win this competition from the very beginning and always believed we would accomplish our goal. Now that we’re here, we will have to redefine our goals in order to achieve success in New York,” says Zachary P. Cressman, a member of the winning team.

The other Wilfrid Laurier team members are Andy Huynh, Gurveer Kehal, Jason Senensky and faculty advisor Professor Brian F. Smith.

IE