Photo caption: (L-R)  Rebecca dePedrini  (Italy), Twisha Soni (India), Martin Peter Kiesewetterestape (Germany), Arya Moola (India), and Conor Maguire (Ireland).

Thursday, 23 February 2023- The CFA Ireland Research Challenge was hosted by Prescient Fund Services and the team that participated from UCD Smurfit School was comprised of students from the MSc (Finance) and MSc (Quantitative Finance) programmes. UCD Smurfit School competed against Trinity College Dublin, University College Cork, University of Galway, and Queens University Belfast. The UCD Smurfit School team won the competition and are now the CFA Ireland Research Challenge Champions 2023, having previously won the competition in 2022 and 2018.

The team was ably mentored by Dr. Cormac Mac Fhionnlaoich, Academic Director, MSc (Finance) and Marie Gillespie, CFA, Director, Senior Equity Analyst, Davy.

The focus company was Flutter Entertainment, the global sports betting, gaming and entertainment provider (www.flutter.com). The team’s report and presentation concluded with a BUY recommendation.

The UCD Smurfit School team will now go onto the represent the School, UCD and Ireland at the Northern Europe Sub Regional Final scheduled to take place in March 2023, where they will compete against National CFA Research Championship Teams from Norway, Finland, Denmark and Sweden. We wish them well in the next step of this competition.

Learn more about the event on the CFA Research Challenge Website: https://www.cfainstitute.org/en/societies/challenge.