UCLA Anderson School of Management Blog

Team Building and Investing Acumen Won UCLA Anderson Students First Place in the 2017 Fink Stock Pitch

UCLA Anderson’s Justin Phillips (’18) (left) and Jarrid Johnston (FEMBA ’19) of team J^2 Capital won the 2017 Fink Stock Pitch Competition, with teams from UVA Darden School of Business and Stanford Graduate School of Business placing second and third, respectively. Phillips, an equity research analyst, described the rush of competing — and prevailing — in the seventh annual stock pitch.

Watch the day unfold in photos!

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By Justin Phillips (’18)

After answering the Fink Center’s annual call for resumes and statements of purpose, I was proud to learn that I had been selected to represent UCLA in the 2017 Fink Center Stock Pitch Competition. I soon learned that I would be partnered with Jarrid Johnston, a first-year FEMBA student, whom I’d never even met. And after a few brief calls, I could tell that Jarrid really knew his stuff. He is an investment professional with expertise in financial modeling and experience in public and private equities analysis. We called our team J^2 Capital because both our names start with the 10th letter of the alphabet.

We would have a week to prepare our first-round pitch options. On a Friday morning, we received our investment universe, scrutinizing the securities list of popular equities like Tesla, NVIDIA and Amazon. Given the one-year investment horizon, we decided to pitch Health Equity (HQY) as a long because of its sustainable, scalable business model and an accommodative regulatory environment. We each conducted our own investigations on the name by vetting the recent quarterly and annual reports, conference calls, investor days and sell-side research. After a few days, we came together and built out our investment thesis and valuation. Balancing the stock pitch with the rigors of first-year MBA coursework proved to be a challenging but rewarding experience.

Finding the Right B-School Fit, Despite Rankings

Rankings can be persuasive, and MBA hopefuls may look first at the numbers before considering overall fit when considering programs. But Alex Lawrence (’99), assistant dean of MBA admissions and financial aid at UCLA Anderson, cautions that “It’s more important that an applicant knows why he/she is going to business school in the first place.”

Lawrence, who is responsible for sourcing, attracting, recruiting and enrolling qualified candidates to the full-time MBA program, recently shared his professional knowledge with MBA Journal and offered some thoughts about the importance of rankings. In “Confusing methods, changing measures: How helpful are rankings for prospective MBA students?” Lawrence writes:

With so many factors that go into a particular rankings formula, there are likely some that may not be of interest to the applicant. One should consider the quality of faculty, career placement/recruiting, student satisfaction, and any other criteria.

Read on to find out how Lawrence recommends applicants create their own rankings — to find the ideal B-school fit.