By Danwei Chen
In fall of 2016, John Bay (’17) approached UCLA Anderson’s Fink Center for Finance & Investments with a novel idea. Having worked on the student committee for the annual Fink Center Stock Pitch Competition, he wondered why no such competition existed for fixed income. He expressed his plan for a competition that would embody both a portfolio competition over a span of time, as well as a bond pitch component that would be identical to the way stock pitches are conducted. After months of development with the Fink Center and recruiting co-founders Paige Kolesar (’17) and Charles McMahon (’17), as well as co-director Joseph Chiu (’18), the first MBA-level credit pitch competition was launched.
The students invited top MBA schools from across the nation to participate in a 12-week portfolio competition capped by a bond pitch competition at UCLA. With a three-month time horizon and $100,000 of “paper money” to invest, teams submitted an original portfolio of up to 10 bonds and were permitted to make 20 trades over the course of the competition. Teams operated anonymously and were each given a Greek letter team name.
Every week, the returns of all teams were made public so that competitors and other onlookers could track their progress. The main prize would be given to the best 12-week portfolio performance, but the competition also rewarded those who excelled in other ways. The teams would travel to Los Angeles in May at the conclusion of the 12 weeks to make bond pitches to a panel of industry professional judges.
Each team was given 15 minutes to present and 15 minutes of Q&A from judges. To round out the day, judges Brian Gelfand (’14) of TCW, Julie Greenman (’07) of Ares Management, Kevin Bekas (’15) of DoubleLine and Ray Kennedy (’88) of Hotchkis & Wiley, participated in a panel to discuss fixed income as well as their experiences attending UCLA Anderson. The judges also addressed how they would have approached competing in the bond portfolio component, and agreed that a three-month horizon is challenging to in the fixed income arena.
With high-caliber pitches from all schools, the judges faced tough decisions. The winner of Best 12-Week Portfolio Performance was quantitatively determined and awarded to Duke Fuqua’s Team Iota, along with a prize of $3,000. The judges awarded most Improved Portfolio, with a prize of $2,000, to Phil Meng (EMBA ’18) and Nick Heard (EMBA ’18) of UCLA Anderson’s Team Delta, and Judges’ Choice of Best Bond Pitch, with a prize of $2,000, to Team Zeta from Northwestern Kellogg.
Teams and judges celebrated the completion of a groundbreaking competition with a reception. Students and judges alike agreed that the competition was a great way for students to have real-world exposure to fixed income. The Fink Center hopes to bring back the competition annually, and can’t wait to see what students do with it next year!
The following schools competed:
- Columbia Business School
- Duke Fuqua School of Business
- Berkeley Haas School of Business
- Northwestern Kellogg School of Management
- MIT Sloan School of Management
- NYU Stern School of Business
- Michigan Ross School of Business
- Carnegie Mellon Tepper School of Business
- UCLA Anderson School of Management
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