On December 24, Augustus, a team comprising junior undergraduate students of The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Shenzhen (“University”) won the championship at CFA Institute Research Challenge 2017, and will represent the University to participate in the Asia-Pacific Region final competition to be held in Bangkok, Thailand. Mr. Sili Wei, leader of another team Switch On, has won the title of Best Individual Performance.

This is the first time that the University has sent students to attend the challenge. The team, comprising junior undergraduate students from the School of Management and Economics, has won the honor after defeating two teams comprising post-graduate students from Peking University HSBC Business School.

This year, 15 teams from seven universities have competed for the championship for South China. The judges on the final competition is composed of star managers and senior analysts from China Southern Asset Management, Bosera Funds, GF Fund Management Co. Ltd., and Morningstar. Augustus and Switch On won out thanks to their solid knowledge, excellent critical analysis and stable on-stage performance.

Augustus picked Alibaba Health Information Technology Limited to write their report on and presented their research results to the judges before winning the first place. Another team studied BYD Auto and won the third place.               

                                                               Augustus

                                                                    Switch On

The challenge is a simulated version of a real business scenario. It reflects real issues that students or business professionals would have to deal with. Consequently, the competition is conducted by way of case studies, aiming to test students’ potential to solve genuine business problems. The upside of this case study-oriented approach is to help students to apply their knowledge to business scenarios and businesses to hire persons with practical problem-solving skills.

The CFA Institute Research Challenge is an annual global competition that provides university students with hands-on mentoring and intensive training in financial analysis. Students work in teams to research and analyze a publicly traded company, and write research reports on their assigned company. They then present and defend their analysis to a panel of industry professionals. The competition has three levels: local, regional, and global. In China, it has four competition areas, namely North China, East China, South China and Midwest China.