A team of five master of business administration (MBA) students from the University of Washington, Bothell won the Pacific Northwest Investment Research Challenge organized by the Seattle CFA Society Feb. 5, after competing against teams from seven other universities in the region. The UW-Bothell team will now represent the Pacific Northwest at the Americas Investment Research Challenge in New York City next month where it will compete against 30 teams from North and South America. The winning team in New York will move on to the Global Investment Research Challenge in Hong Kong in April.

Ahmed Khalil, Ashna Nagi, Patrick McShane, Shau Pang and Teddy Lin were on the winning team. Says UW-Bothell faculty sponsor professor Gowri Shankar, “Their level of work is something that you expect from professionals who have been doing this a couple of years, not students who are still in their MBA program. It just shows the tremendous potential of our MBA students and their capacity to compete with the best in the Pacific Northwest.”

The UW-Bothell team and the other squads presented their findings and projections to an audience of certified financial analyst (CFA) charterholders, as well as senior managers of Fisher Communications. After responding to a series of questions from the judging panel, the UW-Bothell team was judged to have the best investment advisory report.

The UW-Bothell team worked for nearly two months to produce an investment advisory report on Fisher Communications, a Seattle-based broadcasting firm. The UW-Bothell team met with the CEO and CFO of the firm and worked on the project for nearly two months, understanding the nuts and bolts of the firm’s business operations, forecasting future growth and prospects and making financial projections on profitability and stock prices.