Research Competition

Please see detailed rule, guideline, requirement & sample presentation/investment summary 

Download Summary

Objective

To put SpringBoardTM’s interns to the test in their fundamentals research* skills and build up interns competency

To become a hiring arena for hiring managers from both buyside and sellside

Expose participants to real life work in the investment industry and prepare participant for a front office job

To determine competency amongst Springboard’s intern to facilitate job referral and allocation of training opportunities

To provide team of Kairos Research investment ideas

Contestants

  • Compulsory for SpringboardTM’s advance stage students.
  • Open to public with fees payable.

Judges & Ranking

  • At least three professional analysts, from buyside or sellside.
  • At least one from SpringboardTM team
  • Hiring managers who is looking for talents
  • Each judge will provide scores for each contestant. A simple average will be applied to obtain contestants’ score, for final ranking.

What do you need to provide?

  • An investment summary should be preferably no longer than 4 pages. We will ONLY print four pages for our judges. However, we will score low for report lack of clear logic flow and conciseness.
  • A presentation to the judging committee is limited to 7 min per candidate with an additional 10-15 min for Q&A
  • A different set of presentation report should be used during the competition and must be kept between 3-4 pages long with graphs/charts/tables to be placed in the Appendix. A proper presentation slide will help the participant to communicate his/her idea more effectively.

What do we look out for?
We do not have a specific structure to follow as long as the report covers the basic points as shown below:

  • Provide a company background: What does the firm do and how they derive their revenue source(s)
  • How does the industry operate and the firm’s relative position to the industry
  • Bonus will be given to those with in-depth industry trend analysis
  • Give a peer comparison(s) analysis including key financial ratios
  • Explain why the company should be a BUY/HOLD/SELL recommendation:
  •     – Provide a few reasons to support his/her recommendation
  •     – The recommendation must be able to show the firm’s competitive edge
  •    –  Give us the story
  • Valuations, assumptions and a margin of safety should be reasonable and logical
  • Investment risks and catalysts for potential upside
  • Full-statement financial models are not necessary. However, a sound model will value add to his/her job search.
  • We want to see a clear analysis of the company and not just reporting of the facts (i.e. no plagiarizing nor cut & paste)
  • The key factor is to be able to convince us why the company is a BUY/HOLD/SELL