The team from the John M. Olin School of Business won first place in the third annual Hollywood Marine Bank Finance Case Competition, held April 17 at Tulane University in New Orleans.
Three second-year MBA students -- Sinisa Mali, Joseph Terracina and Eric Veiel -- and first-year MBA student Joe Hanzlik comprised the team, which won the top prize of $3,000. The four other teams in the competition, all from the southern region, were from Tulane, Emory University in Atlanta, Rice University in Houston and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
All teams were given the case, which was set in the 1980s and involved a manufacturing company heavily in debt but seeking an additional loan for an acquisition. Each team had six hours to analyze the case and prepare a PowerPoint presentation to convince "bankers" -- the judges -- to grant the loan. Judges were prominent New Orleans business persons, alumni of Tulane.
Scott Greenfield, a 1999 MBA candidate, one of three co-chairs of the Olin Finance Club, was integral to the selection and organization of the team. He and all team members, who hadn't previously worked together as a team, plan careers in finance.
After graduation, Greenfield will be senior financial analyst at Intel Corp. in Portland, Ore.; Mali will be a senior associate in the financial advisory services group of Deloitte & Touche in Prague, Czech Republic; Terracina will be an associate in the private equity group of Mesirow Financial in Chicago; and Veiel will be an associate in securities research at A.G. Edwards & Sons in St. Louis. Hanzlik will intern this summer in investment banking at Edward Jones in St. Louis.
Veiel said the competition was a great learning experience. "It put the team in a tight time frame," he said, "and the pressure was unbelievable. Luckily, our team was low-key, and we stayed calm and focused. Team dynamics is often more important than smartness."
