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UWA Business School
A team of undergraduate students from The University of Western Australia has won the UBS Investment Banking Challenge for the first time in history.

Lincoln Tan, Olivia Blakiston and Andrew Gale beat more than 450 teams from seven leading universities around Australia to claim the top prize. As the national winners, they received a cash prize and internship interviews with UBS.

The UBS Challenge requires teams to become familiar with a case study, developed by UBS bankers and based on a real Mergers and Acquisitions (M&A) transaction. After a campus round, winning teams are then invited to present to a panel of judges for 15 minutes at the National Final and answer questions typical of those posed to a junior analyst at UBS.

‘This year, we looked at various stages of the Noble Group/Gloucester Coal deal that occurred in 2009,' explained Lincoln. ‘The case study required students to deal with a range of issues including valuation, M&A theory and corporate strategy. The deal was controversial from a regulatory perspective, which made things very interesting.'

After university, Lincoln, who is studying Commerce and Law, plans to pursue a career in investment banking. He entered the UBS Challenge because he saw it as an opportunity to consolidate what he had learnt and apply it in a competitive environment.

The high time commitment and hard work, says Lincoln, was more than worthwhile. ‘We made sure we were well prepared to answer questions posed to us by reading around all facets of the deal - this was particularly important for the National Final round, where the judging panel consisted of senior bankers who had advised on the actual transaction. There was nothing you could tell them that they didn't already know, so there was minimal margin for error,' said Lincoln.

‘Doing well in the competition was a priority for the team. As such, we were willing to make sacrifices, including the Easter weekend and Mother's Day. Working well as a team was also really important...you've gotta get along well with them at 4am if you expect to get anything done!'

After winning the UWA campus round of the competition, the team flew to UBS' Sydney offices to learn more about investment banking and compete in the National Final. ‘Getting across to Sydney and being able to chat to bankers about our presentation and of course, doing well in the competition and seeing our hard work pay off was a highlight,' said Lincoln.

‘There are many firm sponsored competitions available to students enrolled at UWA. I would definitely encourage students to make the most of those opportunities - they're a fantastic learning experience and typically offer internship opportunities for students who do well.'

In contrast to Lincoln, who will be commencing in an analyst role with an investment bank next year, Olivia had very little prior experience of finance. Like Lincoln, however, she encourages students to consider entering the competition.

‘In terms of why I decided to enter the competition - I had very limited exposure to investment banking but was very interested in it,' she said. ‘The competition was a great way to get a real understanding of what investment banking was like.

‘I would highly recommend all interested students participate in the competition at some point in their degree. Apart from it being a great way to consolidate and further your finance knowledge, the opportunity it gave me to develop my presentation and teamwork skills was invaluable and unique to the nature of the competition. Definitely one of the most rewarding experiences I've had at uni so far!'

Simon Bartulovic, UBS AG, Investment Banking, congratulated the UWA team on their excellent presentation.

This is the seventh year that the UBS Investment Banking Challenge has run. This year, 42 teams from UWA and more than 450 teams from around Australia entered the competition.

Media references

Heather Merritt
Director, External Relations
UWA Business School
T: +618 6488 8171
M: 0419 950 027
E: [email protected]

Verity Chia
Communications Officer
UWA Business School
T: +618 6488 1346
E: [email protected]