The Global Network Investment Competition, hosted by the Yale School of Management (Yale SOM), is a one-of-a-kind annual contest that enhances the study of equity investments. This year’s competition is comprised of 24 student teams from top business schools around the globe which are members of the Global Network for Advanced Management (GNAM).

Each team submits five investment ideas from the country in which they attend school for a chance to win the competition’s awards: one for the best investment thesis, judged through written reports and a live, virtual stock-pitch competition; and the other for the top performing portfolios. Each team’s portfolio performance is measured net of the respective local index over the six-months of the competition.

The competition, initiated in 2015 by Professor Will Goetzmann of Yale SOM’s International Center for Finance, was designed as a way to connect students across the network who are interested in investing. By participating in the competition, students gain knowledge of high performing companies and stocks from around the world.

This year’s team from Lagos Business School, Pan-Atlantic University in Nigeria, is currently doing well as the competition nears its completion on April 30, 2020. Known as Team Albatross, the team’s net return to date (as of January 15) is 15.64% vs Nigerian Stock Exchange Mai-Board which puts them in second place so far among the 24 teams competing.

Members of Team Albatross (left to right, top row): Oluwatimilehin Olaiwola, Oluwaseun Egbeola, Adetutu Ola-Buraimo. (bottom row) Babatunde Adeniran, Ifedolapo Abijo-Peters, Kamil Bello.

Members of Team Albatross shared their thoughts on the competition and the broader topic of the role of business in Nigeria’s – and the African continent’s – future. Highlights of their comments include:

“We are a diverse team consisting of individuals with experiences ranging from three years to more than a decade spent across different business industries. Among us, the overarching reason we each decided to attend business school is the incremental learning and networking opportunities it presents. We feel a business school of Lagos Business School’s standing empowers us with the right tools, skillsets and experiences to do more to impact our businesses, Nigeria and the African continent at large. Business remains critical to the future of Nigeria and Africa to lift its citizens out of poverty through the creation of jobs, wealth opportunities and contributing to economic development.

At the outset of the competition, the first learning experience for the team came from the insights we gained working on the industry report (one of the required initial submission documents). As we began to follow the performance of other teams, certain international business trends jumped out, for example, Team Alphababies of the Hitotsubashi University Graduate School of International Corporate Strategy chose high-tech stocks from the Nikkei index, and this reflects the sophistication of the Japanese market.

Our team’s approach to monitoring the competition has been to follow the performance of other teams on a daily basis. It’s been revealing that the best performers so far are based on stocks in the emerging markets. We believe with the right enablers, incentive and awareness initiatives, global investors will begin to diversify greater portions of their investment portfolios to include stocks from emerging markets.

We have expectations to establish key international connections from this competition. The world has become a global village and these connections are critical to leveraging economies of scale across territories. One of the highlights of this competition for us has been the opportunity to amplify to our peers the visibility of the Nigeria Stock Exchange (NSE) as an exciting destination for international investors.”

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For more information about the Global Network for Advanced Management visit:
https://globalnetwork.io/

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For more information on Global Network member Lagos Business School, Pan-Atlantic University, Nigeria visit: https://globalnetwork.io/members/lagos-business-school-pan-atlantic-university