{"id":27055,"date":"2016-07-19T12:07:12","date_gmt":"2016-07-19T16:07:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/biznews.fiu.edu\/?p=27055"},"modified":"2016-07-27T08:13:01","modified_gmt":"2016-07-27T12:13:01","slug":"competition-shines-a-light-on-fiu-finance-students","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/biznews.fiu.edu\/2016\/07\/competition-shines-a-light-on-fiu-finance-students\/","title":{"rendered":"Competition shines a light on FIU Finance students."},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-27056\" src=\"https:\/\/biznews.fiu.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/07\/FIU-Finance-students.jpg\" alt=\"Competition shines a light on FIU Finance students.\" width=\"770\" height=\"400\" srcset=\"https:\/\/biznews.fiu.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/07\/FIU-Finance-students.jpg 770w, https:\/\/biznews.fiu.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/07\/FIU-Finance-students-300x156.jpg 300w, https:\/\/biznews.fiu.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/07\/FIU-Finance-students-230x119.jpg 230w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 770px) 100vw, 770px\" \/><\/p>\n<p>At first glance, spending seven hours locked in a hotel room doesn\u2019t seem like much of an honor. But that\u2019s what it was for four undergraduate Florida International University College of Business students, all members of the Phoenician Investment Fund (PIF). The quartet was chosen as one of 24 university teams to participate in the 2016 National Investment Banking Competition, held this spring.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe went through the case, submitted our analysis and we got the great news on January first \u2013 we passed to the final round \u2013 we\u2019re going to Canada!\u201d said team member Maria Chahin, who is working on her BBA in finance and international business.<\/p>\n<p>Being named to the semi-finals and selected out of more than 330 teams was a validation for PIF, which has about 120 members. The annual case competition, which has graduate and undergraduate tracks, took place in Vancouver. Rounding out the team were Carlos Consuegra, Jacob Grohoski and Daniel Riley.<\/p>\n<p>NIBC bases its selections on a team\u2019s application. However, explained Consuegra, who was the team leader, the organization sent guidelines and preliminary information upon which to build each entry. Phoenician\u2019s case centered on AT&amp;T acquiring a cable and satellite firm. The competition\u2019s second round asked the team to delve more deeply into same supposed transaction.<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/AUX0LrmS9tM?rel=0\" width=\"640\" height=\"360\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p><em>On your own with data.<\/em><\/p>\n<p>On the morning of the second round, they were ushered into a Vancouver hotel room. Cell phones were confiscated and the Internet was blocked. Breakfast and lunch were delivered. The total blackout dramatically increased the level of difficulty. \u201cIf you didn\u2019t know something, you couldn\u2019t find it,\u201d Chahin said. They had to emerge with a presentation based on a transaction, complete with financials and forward-looking contingencies.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe pitched our advice and we had eight minutes to give an in-depth transaction,\u201d Chahin said. The presentation included five minutes of questions, some quite technical. \u201cThere was an exciting feeling of being in that moment.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>In the end, Phoenician Investment wasn\u2019t one of the two teams picked for the finals. But that did little to dampen their enthusiasm. \u201cWe had opportunities to network with top representatives of the visiting firms,\u201d Chahin said.<\/p>\n<p>And it was a glimpse of the future. \u201cEverything you do in the competition is what you would do working as an investment banking analyst,\u201d said Consuegra, who, like Chahin, is working on his BBA with a focus on finance and international business.<\/p>\n<p>The Phoenician Investment Fund was started several years ago. Its name evokes the ancient trading nation that plied the Mediterranean and Aegean centuries before Greece reached its glory. The FIU group\u2019s trades are now made without actual money, but students are working on creating a funded option \u2013 another way to prepare for finance and investment jobs.<\/p>\n<p>Getting a taste of the real world is also the best part of the NIBC competition, noted Consuegra. \u201cThe semi-finals are structured as if it was a regular day on the job,\u201d he said. An added benefit is that the competition is the kind of experience job interviewers like to hear about, he said. \u201cThis is 100 percent what you are going to do on a day-to-day basis.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.flickr.com\/slideShow\/index.gne?group_id=&amp;user_id=23794481@N04&amp;set_id=72157670516261452\/show\" width=\"100%\" height=\"400\" frameborder=\"0\" scrolling=\"no\" align=\"middle\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>At first glance, spending seven hours locked in a hotel room doesn\u2019t seem like much of an honor. But that\u2019s what it was for four undergraduate Florida International University College of Business students, all members of the Phoenician Investment Fund (PIF). The quartet was chosen as one of 24 university teams to participate in the [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":75,"featured_media":27056,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[10,13],"tags":[4078,4080,4079,4077,4081,2875],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/biznews.fiu.edu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27055"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/biznews.fiu.edu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/biznews.fiu.edu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/biznews.fiu.edu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/75"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/biznews.fiu.edu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=27055"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/biznews.fiu.edu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27055\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":27058,"href":"https:\/\/biznews.fiu.edu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27055\/revisions\/27058"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/biznews.fiu.edu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/27056"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/biznews.fiu.edu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=27055"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/biznews.fiu.edu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=27055"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/biznews.fiu.edu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=27055"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}