Research Challenge 2019

After five months of research on this year’s subject company Axfood. Thursday the 21st of February saw the three finalist teams; Linköping University, Lund University and Jönköping University, in the 2019 Swedish IRC final present their recommendation and target price on Axfood.

Linköping University’s written report impressed the graders. The judges, Thomas Brodin (Cliens), Fredrik Ahlin (If), Nicklas Skogman (Handelsbanken Capital Markets) and Andreas Brock (Coeli) were equally convinced by the team’s SELL recommendation. The team gave a very professional presentation supported by robust financial analysis and conclusions.

Linköping University was represented by Erik Almgren, Eric Olsson, Carl Gustafson, Karim Sabbagh and Fredrik Kronström. The team was mentored by Mark Shay (Accendo Capital) and had guidance from their faculty advisor Öystein Fredriksen, Senior Lecturer.

The Board of CFA Sweden would like to thank all the volunteers that made this year’s challenge a great success: mentors, graders, judges, Cecilia Ketels at Axfood. A big thank you goes out to the challenge sponsors; Handelsbanken, FactSet and Kaplan Schweser.

Linköping University will participate in the EMEA regional final in Zürich on April 10-11 and possibly also in the global final in New York on April 25.

Participating teams came from:

Linköping University
Lund University
Jönköping University
Mälardalen University
University West

About Research Challenge:

The CFA Institute RESEARCH CHALLENGE offers students the unique opportunity to learn from leading industry experts and compete with peers from the world’s top finance and business programs. This annual educational initiative promotes best practices in equity research among the next generation of analysts through hands-on mentoring and intensive training in company analysis and presentation skills. The challenge gathers students, investment professionals, publicly traded companies and corporate sponsors together locally for a real world competition on a global scale.

CFA Sweden ESG Award 2017

The ESG Committee of CFA Society Sweden has decided to present the Corporate Human Rights Benchmark (CHRB) with the CFA Sweden ESG Award for 2017.

Human Rights is a challenging and sometimes complex topic for business, investors and governments. With the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights setting a de-facto standard on the responsibilities for business, investors and governments the need for transparent tools to both clarify expectations but also to quantify to the extent it is possible the efforts of companies in this area is much needed.

With the Corporate Human Rights Benchmark (CHRB), a consortium of Aviva, APG, Business & Human Rights, EIRIS, IHRB, VBDO and Nordea are addressing this issue in a very ambitious manner and taking the topic to the financial markets through transparency, accessibility and a form of standardization previously missed.

The Corporate Human Rights Benchmark (CHRB) aims to measure the human rights performance of the world’s 500 largest publicly listed companies. “CHRB provides a comparative snapshot from year to year of the largest companies on the planet, looking at the policies, processes and practices they have in order to systematize their work on human rights and how they respond to serious allegations of human rights violations. CHRB is publicly available to all stakeholders at no cost. “

The award was accepted by Magdalena Kettis PhD, Head of Thematic Engagement, Group Sustainable Finance, Nordea and CHRB Advisory Council Member.

CFA Society Sweden would like to thank the members of the ESG-jury for their commitment: Henrik Malmsten (CEO, Durable Vision Invest) Jenny Askfelt Ruud, (CEO, Enwise) and John Howchin (Secretary-General, Council on Ethics of the Swedish National Pension Funds).

ESG (environmental, social and governance) refers to the three main areas of concern that have developed as central factors in measuring the sustainability and ethical impact of investments. ESG represents concepts and approaches that influences and governs how asset managers construct portfolios and evaluate investments, examples including as examples carbon footprints, board independence and different codes of conduct.

Linköping wins the Local Investment Research Challenge 2018

After five months of research on this year’s subject company Trelleborg. Thursday the 22nd of February saw the three finalist teams; Linköping University, KTH and Jönköping University, in the 2018 Swedish IRC final present their recommendation and target price on Trelleborg.

Linköping University’s written report impressed the graders. The judges, Thomas Brodin (Cliens), Fredrik Ahlin (IF) and Rasmus Engberg (Handelsbanken Capital Markets) were equally convinced by the team’s BUY recommendation. The team gave a very professional presentation supported by robust financial analysis and conclusions.

Linköping University was represented by Philip Hivander, Sebastian Olsson, Viktor Trollsten and Mattias Vadsten. The team was mentored by Mats Waldemarsson, CFA and had guidance from their faculty advisor Öystein Fredriksen, Senior Lecturer.

The Board of CFA Sweden would like to thank all the volunteers that made this year’s challenge a great success: mentors, graders, judges, Christopher Sjögren at Trelleborg. A big thank you goes out to the challenge sponsors; Handelsbanken, FactSet and Kaplan Schweser.

Linköping University will participate in the EMEA regional final in Dublin on April 4-5 and possibly also in the global final in Seoul on April 20.

Participating teams came from:

Mälardalen University
Linköping University
KTH
Göteborgs University
Lund University
Jönköping University

KTH wins the Investment Research Challenge 2017

After five months of research on this year’s subject company Assa Abloy. Thursday the 23th of February saw the four finalist teams; Linköping University, KTH, Stockholm University and Lund University, in the 2017 Swedish IRC final present their recommendation and target price on Assa Abloy.

KTH’s written report impressed the graders. The judges, Thomas Brodin (Cliens), Fredrik Ahlin (IF), Charlotta Faxen (Lannebo Fonder), Martin Jacobsson (Handelsbanken Capital Markets), and Per Colleen (AP4) were equally convinced by the team’s HOLD recommendation. The team gave a very professional presentation supported by robust financial analysis and conclusions.

KTH was represented by Rasmus Wicklund (team captain), Alexander Andrésen, Max Talbak, Jakob Rolén and Edvin Berg. The team was mentored by Christian Guggenheim, CFA and had guidance from their faculty advisor Tomas Sörensson, Associate professor.

The Board of CFA Sweden would like to thank all the volunteers that made this year’s challenge a great success: mentors, graders, judges, Johan Lundin at Assa Abloy. A big thank you goes out to the challenge sponsors; Handelsbanken, FactSet and Kaplan Schweser.

Research Challenge 2016

The CFA Institute Research Challenge is an annual global competition that provides university students with hands-on mentoring and intensive training in financial analysis. Since this competition first started in 2002 more that 15,000 students from more than 1,000 universities around the world have participated. The 2016 competition regional and global finals took place in Chicago.

The Swedish Local Research Challenge kicked off in October 2015. It was the 10th year the competition was held, and the 8th time the Research Challenge was organized in Sweden. Six teams participated representing the universities of Linköping, Gothenburg, Lund, Mälardalen, Stockholm and KTH Royal Institute of Technology. The students were given the task of preparing a sell-side research report including a buy/hold/sell recommendation on the Swedish company Doro. Each team was assigned a mentor, a CFA charterholder, by CFA Sweden for guidance.

A few weeks into the competition, the students and mentors were invited to Stockholm to meet Doro’s CEO Jerome Arnaud. Mr. Arnaud gave a 1-hour presentation of the company profile and strategic outlooks, followed by a 30-minute Q&A session. After the presentation each team had an opportunity to ask 1 folllow up question by email until mid-november. Mr. Arnaud’s answers were distributed to all teams.

The teams spent the remainder of 2015 completing the written reports and handed them in for grading in December. Three independent graders, also CFA charterholders, evaluated and graded the reports. The four teams with the highest total score (Lund, KTH, Linköping and Stockholm University) were invited to the local Swedish final in February 2016 where each team gave a ten-minute presentation arguing and supporting their conclusion from the written research report. Following the presentation, there was a ten-minute Q&A from the four people strong jury comprised of investment professionals. The jury graded the teams based on their performance and the final score was a combination of the scores from the written report and presentation respectively. KTH Royal Institute of Technology received the highest score in total as well as on each individual segment, but the scores of the additional three finalist teams were very close.

It’s worth remarking that 2 representatives of Doro’s board of direcors attended the final and noted a high quality of students’ work.

KTH Royal Institute of Technology represented by: Mehrdad Danial Bahador (team leader), Nassif Mansour, Sara Emelie Malmberg, Anton Persson, Edward Sai Kuen Sikorski and mentored by Malcolm McNab, CFA (Pareto Securities) thereafter represented Sweden at the EMEA finale in Chicago in April. Despite a strong performance and the coaching they unfortunately did not maker it passed the second round in the tournament. Politecnico di Milano — Representing CFA Society Italy won the EMEA finale and University of Waterloo Representing CFA Society Toronto and CFA Society Ottawa won the Global Competition

CFA Sweden 2016 Award

The 2016 award went to Örebro kommun and Region Västmanland for both institutions’ holistic approach to sustainability, appreciating that the assets they manage and capital they issue has an impact on climate and society as well as ethical aspects. They have taken an organization-wide approach on how to become more sustainable by collaborating across departments such as finance and the environment. More recently linking their work to Agenda 2030 where incorporating ESG and reducing CO2 emissions in their financial investments is a large part of this. They have taken a leadership role by being early adopters and generously shared their work and insights with other institutions.

Örebro kommun was the first Swedish municipality, and the 30th globally, to divest fossil fuels and has the ambition to be climate neutral by 2030. Örebro was also the second Swedish municipality to issue a green bond and green finances are a focus area in their overall climate strategy.

Region Västmanland was the first city council to conduct an internal CO2-screening after which their portfolio emissions was reduced by a third without sacrificing performance. They have developed an internal model for fund manager evaluation based on an annual ESG-questionnaire. The information is the basis for fund manager review and internal discussion.

The award was accepted by Hanna Arneson, Sustainabilitystrategist green finances Örebro kommun and Björn Sundin, Municipal commissioner community planning, Örebro kommun, as well as Fredrik Holst, Head of finance Region Västmanland.

CFA Sweden would like to thank the members of the ESG-jury for their committment: Filippa Bergin (Head of sustainability, Storebrand), Hanna Roberts (CEO, GES), Henrik Malmsten (CEO, Durable Vision Invest) and John Howchin (Secretary general, Etikrådet).

ESG (environmental, social and governance) refers to the three main areas of concern that have developed as central factors in measuring the sustainability and ethical impact of investments. ESG represents concepts and approaches that influences and governs how asset managers construct portfolios and evaluate investments, examples include carbon footprint, board .independence, codes of conduct.

Research Challenge 2015

After five months of research on this year’s subject company AtlasCopco. Thursday the 12th of February saw the four finalst teams; KTH, Lund University, Mälardalen University and Stockholm School of Economics, in the 2015 Swedish IRC final present their recommendation and target price on AtlasCopco.

Lund University’s written report impressed the graders. The judges, Charlotta Faxen (Lannebo Fonder), Peder Frölen (Handelsbanken Capital Markets), Jill Bederoff (Veckans Affärer) and Thomas Brodin (Cliens) were equally convinced by the team’s HOLD recommendation. The team gave a very professional presentation supported by robust financial analysis and conclusions.

Lund University was represented by Martijn Bakker (team captain), Chadwick Rufus Dorai, Koen van Veen, Hendrik Ilchmann and David Salomon. The team was mentored by Alf Riple, CFA and had guidance from their faculty advisor Niclas Andren, PhD.

The Board of CFA Sweden would like to thank all the volunteers that made this year’s challenge a great success: mentors, graders, judges, Karin von Matern at AtlasCopco. A big thank you goes out to the challenge sponsors; Handelsbanken, FactSet and Kaplan Schweser.