JPMorgan Case Competition - A Taste of Investment Banking in 24 Hours

In a world where weekdays and weekends blend together, where an 1/8th of a point and your elementary school GPA matter, and "circles of death" are the standard evening fare, 95 MBA1s swiped their cards and banded together in KMC 5-50 a couple weeks ago to kick-off the Annual JPMorgan Case Competition.

This is the sixth time that the Graduate Finance Association partnered with JPMorgan to organize this event. The mock case competition provides students with the opportunity to analyze and present recommendations for a company looking to make an acquisition. It also provides the participants with the unique circumstance of not having to sign up for a meeting room between the hours of midnight and 6am.

Importantly, the competition offers a glimpse into investment banking life, though no town cars or expense accounts were provided. Participants were grouped into teams and given financial and industry information on a mining company looking to make an acquisition. All teams had 24 hours to assess the details and present their solutions to a panel of JPMorgan judges. Judges based their selections on content, delivery of presentation, and reasoning of the recommendation. The judges were kind enough to overlook the nervous twitches associated with drinking 4 Red Bulls and 2 quadruple shot lattes while eating all the candy bars in every vending machine in KMC.

"I think this is a fabulous opportunity for students to become aware of the procedures of the investment banking world," said Minkyung Kim, GFA president. "It also gives the students an opportunity to gain exposure to several senior executives from JPMorgan." The winner of this year's competition was Team 4 - composed of Mayank Agarwal, Fiona An, German Del Rio, Ronnie Fleischer, Hrishikesh Gupta, Dan Huber, Meta Marshall, Jaime Pease, Luis Sanz, and Ward Jones.

The runner up was Team 9, represented by Jordan Angel, Aditi Chandarana, Hadi El Harati, Mathew Farkash, Alex Figueroa, Krishnamurthy Kalyanakrishnan, Jessenea Leon, Nevin Vages, and Adriana Valenzuela.

The application process was on a first come, first serve basis. Applicants submitted resumes for consideration. JPMorgan formed teams based on applicants' prior work experiences, which ensured diversity of backgrounds.