Teams from Kelley School’s Master of Science in Finance program sweep the competition at Purdue event

WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. – For the second year in a row, Master of Science in Finance students from the Indiana University Kelley School of Business emerged as the winners of Purdue University’s Private Equity Case Competition.

This year, the three Kelley School teams swept the awards, also coming in second and third place, defeating a dozen other teams from the universities of Notre Dame and Illinois, Washington University of St. Louis and Purdue.

Members of the winning team were Jose Suryadinata and Rodrigo Cyrillo Villa. Coming in second place were Noah Barr, Daniel Borhi, Shashank Gaddamanagu and PJ Heilbronn, and in third place were Alvaro Portilla Vilches, Aman Manghi, Garrett Orten and James DeMaria.

Participants were asked to assess a potential buyout of Walgreens Boots Alliance, which has been rumored as the company pursues a turnaround strategy.

“The case itself presented it as an awesome opportunity to apply all the financial knowledge we spent the last four years building into an intricate real-world scenario,” said Villa, who originally is from São Paulo, Brazil. “Our last three weeks were mostly focused on preparing the best presentation that we could, and our hard work was recognized in the event.

“Everything we have learned up to this point built the foundation for us to be able to deliver the product that we did,” he added. “Our goal was to demonstrate what we are capable of and we’re both glad to have our efforts rewarded.”

Suryadinata, his teammate who originally is from Surabaya, Indonesia, added that they share the same work ethic, which “contributed to the quality of the product we presented.”

Scott Smart, E-II Finance Faculty Fellow and chair of Finance Graduate Programs at the Kelley School, who helped the students prepare for the competition, agreed.

“The secret sauce is that Kelley attracts great students and trains them well,” Smart said. “Our curriculum is very rigorous and gives students opportunities to practice presentations in various contexts, and our faculty are engaged in helping students prepare for specific competitions.”

Last year only one Kelley student competed, Matteo Negrini, who won the event. Most teams had four members, but Matteo competed as an individual. That case asked students to develop a proposal to help Disney get through the challenging times it has faced in recent years. His strategy involved a divestiture of one of Disney’s business lines.

Negrini graduated in December and now is working as an analyst for a Wall Street firm that provides financial advisory solutions to large corporations worldwide. Following graduation in May, Villa will be moving to New York, where he’ll join EY as an associate in their Strategy and Transactions practice. Suryadinata looks forward to joining Micron Technology in Boise, Idaho, as part of its treasury team.

“The real differentiating factor from the program that enabled our teams to stand out is the fact that we are prepared with real-world cases,” Villa said. “In our classes, we take a practical approach to understanding how financial concepts are dealt with in real life through a variety of case studies and projects. Therefore, we are not only limited to the theoretical components of finance, but we learn how to effectively apply them in practical situations.

“A fun fact is that the judges actually asked us if we had any practical experience in the industry as, according to them, they were impressed with the level of our analysis. Even though the answer was no, the MSF program enabled us to apply our academic knowledge of finance to the real-world scenario prompted in the case.”