Five students from ESADE's MSc in Finance – Alexander Maier, Francisco Jose Vargas, Charles Felice Oliver, Ruhi Rahtekar and Maximillian Alexander Ghaffar – have been declared the winners of the Spanish local round of the 2018 CFA Institute Research Challenge. The students' investment analysis on Indra received the highest score from the competition's judges, bringing an ESADE team to victory for the second year in a row.

The CFA Institute Research Challenge is an annual global financial analysis competition that promotes best practices in equity research among the next generation of financial analysts. More than 15,000 students from 1,000 universities around the world have participated in the competition in its eight-year history.

Next stop: Dublin

With this victory, the ESADE team will go on to compete in the regional final for Europe, the Middle East and Africa, to be held in Dublin on 4th and 5th April. The regional winner will advance to the global final on 27th April in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, where teams from all over the world will compete for the title of world champion.

"This victory is a recognition of perseverance and teamwork," Soledad Moya, Academic Director of the MSc in Finance at ESADE. “We are very proud of our students for the quality of their presentation, as well as their confidence and aplomb while facing questions from the panel of judges.”

The CFA Institute, which organises the competition, was founded in the United States in 1963. Its aim is to certify specialists who provide professional services in portfolio management, investment and asset valuation while adhering to the highest ethical standards. The Chartered Financial Analyst (CFA) credential is the most prestigious international qualification that a financial analysis professional can obtain.