Global Private Equity Challenge Winner Announced

They came, they saw, and, they conquered. For the second year in a row, Chicago Booth was awarded first place of the Oxford Chicago Global Private Equity Challenge for their thesis presentation on The Chef’s’ Warehouse.

The transatlantic academic challenge, which was launched in 2015, partners the Private Equity Institute at Oxford Saïd with the Polsky Center and the University of Chicago Booth School of Business in an original approach to networking and experiential learning. Although the challenge channels a competitive atmosphere, it also enables teams from both institutions the opportunity to assess the potential for a leveraged buyout of a publicity-listed company.

Each team spent an hour presenting their thesis while a panel of five judges provided the real-world component by firing off pertinent questions related to investment merit, investment risks, focus areas for due diligence, plan for value creation, debt and capital structure, and more. While the Chicago Booth team presented their business model on The Chef’s Warehouse, team Oxford took a slightly different approach presenting a case on the Pandora Charm accessory company.

In just over two hours, both teams had the chance to pitch strong cases for why the companies they had selected should be leveraged for a potential and hypothetical buyout – in the end Booth was announced the two-time champion of the challenge.

Made up of first-year Booth students, all five team members worked in investment banking immediately following their undergraduate studies before making the transition to private equity firms prior to their start at Chicago Booth. Before the academic school year had begun, Jamie Cavanaugh, Charlie Griffin, Mike MacKay, Kyle Veatch, and Taylor Wood knew that competing in the Oxford Chicago Global PE Challenge was a primary goal for their first year of business school.

To learn more about the program and to stay up-to-date on the Oxford Chicago Global Private Equity Challenge moving forward, click here.

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