ACG Philadelphia presented the 8th annual Association for Corporate Growth (ACG) Cup competition, sponsored by KPMG LLP on April 17, 2014. The Philadelphia Cup, which is open exclusively to MBA and MS Finance students attending top area universities, is a highly realistic private equity/investment banking case study competition that requires a combination of corporate strategy, finance and valuation skills. A total of $25,000 was awarded to to eight local MBA teams and every student who participated took home prize money and invaluable real world experience.
Teams from the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton Business School, Saint Joseph’s University’s Haub School of Business, Villanova University’s School of Business, LaSalle University, Penn State University’s Smeal College of Business, Temple University’s Fox School of Business, LeBow College of Business – Drexel University and the University of Delaware’s Lerner College of Business all competed as finalists in the 2014 ACG Cup. The finalist teams were selected from Round One competitions that were held on-campus at each school. Each team analyzed and presented their solutions and recommendations to a complex business case in order to advance to the “ACG Philadelphia Cup” Finals.
The Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania was the Grand Prize winner, receiving an award of $10,000 and the Philadelphia Cup Trophy to display for the year. The team included Justin Chak, Eugene Dayanghirang, Matt Dennett and Alex Thorn.
In second place was Villanova University and team members Cibbey Abraham, Adam Mathis and Joe Salerno. Tying for third place was St. Joseph’s University team members Shuxing Wei Xue Yang and Yufei Lu and Drexel University team members Christian Arena, Curt Brooks, Colin Donato, Victor Herrera-Cervantes and Jason Keiser.
“The ACG Cup has established itself as a leading business case competition,” said Rajneesh Sharma, Ph.D., associate professor of finance at St. Joseph’s University’s Haub School of Business. “The ‘Philadelphia Cup’ provides a worthwhile opportunity for the students to challenge themselves in tackling a real-world business problem in a competitive environment.”
