CFA Sri Lanka hosts CFA Institute Research Challenge for the seventh year - University students ...

University students to compete for place in Regional Final in Kuala Lumpur in 2013

The CFA Sri Lanka Research Challenge (CFA SLRC) officially got underway for the seventh year with a Kickoff Meeting on 6 July.  The CFA SLRC is the local level of the Global CFA Institute Research Challenge. The CFA Institute Research Challenge comprises:

Analysis of a publicly-traded company; Teams research a publicly traded company; The company’s management presents information to the student teams and is available to answer student questions;
Mentoring by a professional research analyst; Each team works with a CFA charterholder who mentors the team during the research process and reviews and critiques its report; Writing a research report; Each team produces an Initiation of Coverage report on its chosen company; The report is reviewed and scored by a group of judges and a presentation of research to a panel of experts
The teams’ final presentations are locally evaluated by panels of experts from top financial institutions. Panelists include heads of research, portfolio managers, and chief investment officers from the world’s top firms. The team with the highest combined written report and presentation score is the winner and advances to the regional level of the Research Challenge.
Advancement to the CFA Institute Research Challenge Global Finale
Regional winners then progress to compete at the global finale. At the regional and global stages of the Research Challenge, teams are evaluated solely on their presentations.
The Colombo Stock Exchange is the sole sponsor for the local level competition. The Securities and Exchange Commission, as in previous years, has strongly endorsed the benefits of the competition. Project Chair, Shalini Kurukulasuriya,CFA explained that the this annual educational initiative is designed to promote best practices in equity research among the next generation of investment professionals.
The global competition, which runs until April 2013, is expected to attract 3,300 students and 750 universities in nearly 60 countries. During the local level, six teams of three to five students from the  leading universities and academic instituition will compete for a place in the Asia Pacific Regional final in Kuala Lumpur in February 2013. If successful at the Asia Pacific Regional Final, the team will then compete in the Global Final, to be held in London in April 2013.
The Kickoff meeting commenced with a presentation by the senior management of Colombo Dockyards, the target company for this year’s competition.CEO Mangala Yapa and Head of Management Accounts Rohan de Silva provided an overview of the shipping industry, the main earnings drivers for Colombo Dockyards and the key challenges over the short to medium students then had the opportunity to ask questions.
This was followed by series of technical training sessions: Frontier Research and CFA Director Amal Sandararatne conducted a session on report writing and presentation skills. Subsequently, CFA and Amba Research Director Chanakya Dissanayake, CFA and SVP, Amba Research Aruna Perera went on to share practioner perspectives on industry and company analysis.