In February, CFA Society Toronto hosted its seventh Annual Awards Reception. This year’s award categories included the CFA Society Toronto & Hillsdale Canadian Investment Research Award, the local CFA Institute Research Challenge, and the Undergraduate Finance & Economics Scholarship Awards.

CFA Society Toronto & Hillsdale Canadian Investment Research Award

CFA Society Toronto and Hillsdale Investment Management Inc. were pleased to announce the winners of the 2016 Canadian Investment Research Award. The award-winning paper “Does Spending Time in the Minors Pay Off?” was submitted by Michele Meoli and Silvio Vismara, University of Bergamo; and J. Ari Pandes and Michael J. Robinson, CFA, Haskayne School of Business, University of Calgary.

The team was selected by a panel of judges and was awarded C$10,000. The team competed against 19 submissions by academics from top business schools around the world, as well as practitioners of leading investment firms in Canada.

“My co-authors and I are very pleased to receive the 2016 CFA Society Toronto & Hillsdale Canadian Investment Research Award as recognition of the contribution our paper makes to better understanding the nature of the financing of growth-oriented firms in Canada. As Canadian firms work to increase their international competitiveness, it’s vital that these firms better understand their available financing alternatives. In addition, our research provides insights into the regulatory framework that has allowed

Canada to develop an effective junior public equity market while so many other countries have struggled to create this type of market,” said Michael J. Robinson, CFA.

“The authors have discovered that Canadian public firms graduating from the TSX Venture Exchange perform better than venture capital (VC)–backed firms after listing on the TSX. This is a huge win for public markets and supports the role of the TSX Venture Exchange as an important training ground for great Canadian companies,” said Chris Guthrie, CFA, president and CEO of Hillsdale Investment Management Inc.

“At its roots, Hillsdale believes in and supports applied investment research,” said Harry Marmer, CFA, executive vice-president of Hillsdale. “We are so proud to be working with CFA Society Toronto on this award initiative, and this year’s winning paper clearly illustrates the high calibre of submissions.”

Here is the abstract of the winning paper: “This paper compares the performance of firms that first go public on the TSX Venture Exchange (TSX-V) and then graduate to the senior Toronto Stock Exchange (TSX) to the performance of VC-backed firms that issue an IPO directly on the TSX. Controlling for potential selection biases stemming from the original decision to list on the TSX-V rather than receiving a VC injection, as well as from the subsequent listing decision on the TSX, we found TSX-V graduations, on average, outperform VC-backed IPOs by 31.2 percentage points in the three years following the TSX listing. Overall, our results indicate that the TSX-V is an effective ‘incubator’ market for developing firms and thus provides important policy and regulatory insights.”

Research Challenge: 2016 Local Champion

Congratulations to University of Waterloo for its second consecutive win. Student team members Kam Dhaliwal, Adnan Khan, Brent Small, Daniel Zhang, and Rudder Zhang each received C$1,000 and an all-expenses-paid trip to compete in the Americas Regional Finals in Chicago in April.

“CFA Society Toronto is pleased to congratulate the University of Waterloo on winning the Local level of the 2016 CFA Institute Research Challenge. This is the fourth time the University of Waterloo has won the local level, and we are excited to see them represent Toronto on a global scale in the Americas Regional Finals taking place in Chicago,” said Sue Lemon, CFA, CEO of CFA Society Toronto.

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 each team writes a research report on its assigned company with a buy, sell, or hold recommendation. Teams that progress to local, regional, and global finals must present and defend their analysis to a panel of industry professionals. Students learn from experienced industry experts and peers from the world’s top business schools.

“We are very excited to represent the University of Waterloo, CFA Society Toronto, and CFA Society Ottawa in this year’s Americas Regional Finals,” said Rudder Zhang, University of Waterloo’s team captain. “We are extremely grateful for the support and mentorship provided by our advisors and look forward to preparing for the next stage of the competition.”

Each member of the winning team were awarded $1,000 CAD and an all-expenses paid trip to Chicago, Illinois to compete in the Americas Regional Finals. (Read more about CFA Institute Research Challenge on page 12).

Undergraduate Finance & Economics Scholarship Awards

In our continuing efforts to promote the high standards of the CFA designation to our next generation of financial professionals, CFA Society Toronto was pleased to host the 2016 Undergraduate Finance & Economics Scholarship Awards.

Third-year commerce or economics students from universities across Ontario submitted their applications, along with their resumés and a 500-word essay, outlining why they should be selected for the award. Their submissions were reviewed by a panel of investment practitioners from CFA Society Toronto. This year’s scholarship winners are as follows:

First Place (C$3,000): Harry Selvarajan, Wilfrid Laurier University
Second Place (C$2,000): Paul Steiner, Wilfrid Laurier University
Third Place (C$1,000): Yash Patel, York University

For more information on CFA Society Toronto awards and scholarships, please contact awards@cfasociety.ca or call 416-366-5755 x225.