The Wisconsin chapter of the Association for Corporate Growth held the final round of its annual ACG Cup competition on Saturday.
The ACG Cup is a national competition that pits teams of MBA students against each other in evaluating a merger and acquisition case study.
The Wisconsin contest included preliminary rounds at Marquette University, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, University of Wisconsin-Whitewater and University of Wisconsin-Madison. The winning team from each school competed in the final round at the Milwaukee Athletic Club on Saturday.
Each team evaluated a theoretical transaction in which two owners of a company wished to sell their equity stakes in the business and presented its recommendations to four judges.
The judges were Steve Booth, director of investment banking at Robert W. Baird & Co., Dan Eder, owner of Mayville Products Corp., Mark Witt, a shareholder at Godfrey & Kahn S.C. and Greg Marcus, president and CEO of Marcus Corp.
Joe Dahl, Pero Jovasevic and Tyler Carlson, the team from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, presented first at competition. They explained the estimated value of the selling company, their recommendation for the structure of a minority ownership, advice on potential bidding, an exit strategy for the departing owners and an evaluation of investment alternatives.
This is the second year the team has competed in the ACG Cup, Dahl said. He’s interested in it because he hopes to own a business himself someday.
“Initially it was just an opportunity to compete against other schools,” Dahl said, but he’s seen other benefits. “The relationships you build are huge.”
This is the fourth year the Wisconsin chapter has hosted an ACG Cup, said Chris Nolte of Marcus Investments LLC.
“It’s our public outreach. M&A is a fundamental skill in building businesses,” Nolte said. “I would anticipate that as the economy starts to heat up, that people will start to see value in this competition.”
It’s also an opportunity for ACG members to find new talent and hire competitors once they graduate, he said.
University of Wisconsin-Madison’s team won the 2012 ACG Cup and a $5,000 prize.
