MBA students to compete in ACG Detroit Cup
The Detroit Chapter of the Association for Corporate Growth, a global organization that focuses on driving growth for middle market mergers and acquisitions dealmakers and business leaders, sponsors a regional student case competition each year called the ACG Detroit Cup.
The annual cup, now in its fifth year, challenges students to solve real-life M&A business case histories. The teams strategize solutions to a case and present their findings to a panel of ACG members.
The program, which seeks to find the brightest minds for the future of M&A from schools in Southeastern Michigan, provides participants with the opportunities to gain invaluable feedback from judges, expand their networks and compete for scholarships.
Jia Hao, assistant professor of finance at Wayne State University’s School of Business Administration; Alain Piette, WSU business school alumnus and president of SpaceForm Welding Solutions Inc.; and MBA students from WSU are working together to host the 2012 ACG Detroit Cup Finals in early February, 2012.
“The progress in competitiveness achieved under the leadership of Jia resulted in Wayne State achieving a second-place finish in the 2011, and I look forward to the day that the school wins the competition, hopefully in 2012,” Piette said.
Each participating school can send one team with up to five members to the competition. Schools determine what team they will send to the finals by hosting internal competitions. Wayne State will host its internal competition on Jan. 28, 2012, with the finals following on Feb. 11, 2012.
“This is a terrific opportunity for the students to apply the knowledge they learn in class to the competition,” said Hao. “With the strong support from the School of Business Administration, I am confident that our students will do great in the competition.”
Participating schools include Wayne State University, University of Michigan-Ann Arbor, University of Michigan-Flint, Walsh College, University of Detroit-Mercy and Michigan State University.
The winning team receives $10,000 in scholarship prize money from ACG-Detroit and its sponsors. The second-place team receives $5,000 and the remaining teams each receive $1,000.
For more information about ACG-Detroit and the competition, visit their website.
