CFA Society Toronto was well represented by its Local Level Champions from the University of Waterloo at this year’s CFA Institute Research Challenge, Americas Regional Final, in New York City on April 10th. The University of Waterloo competed against teams from University of Hawaii at Manoa, College of William & Mary, and Illinois Institute of Technology. We congratulate University of Waterloo for making it into the final for the Americas competition.

To win the local level final, the team from the University of Waterloo had the best combined score for their written equity research report, graded in January, and their presentation to a panel of judges in early March. The team was made up of five members (Ian Gutwinski, Michael C. Liu, Meng Wang, Daniel Pacione, and Michael Y. Liu), a faculty advisor (Craig Geoffrey, CFA), and a team mentor (Cosmos Chiu, CFA). Teams from eight Ontario universities competed this year, and all teams reported on this year’s subject company, Onex Corporation. Our congratulations also go to the team from Wilfrid Laurier University who earned an honourable mention as first runner-up in this challenge.

CFA Institute Research Challenge is a global competition that tests the analytic, valuation, report writing, and presentation skills of university students. More than 2,500 students from 546 universities around the world participated in the 2010–2011 competition. The competition comprised 79 CFA Local Level Challenges hosted by 102 local CFA societies. Over 1,200 industry volunteers worked directly with student teams. For more information on the challenge, please visit www.researchchallenge.org.