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HK close to making Deal

Chris Davis

Undergraduate students get a taste of real-life wheeling and dealing in JPMorgan's challenging and gripping competition

More than 300 teams from nine universities in Australia and the mainland recently battled it out for the top spot in a mergers and acquisitions competition.

Organiser JPMorgan said the success of the competition and feedback from participants might lead to the event being expanded to include Hong Kong universities.

The investment bank said that providing undergraduates with a realistic taste of the cut and thrust of mergers and acquisitions environment was one of the main objectives of The Deal, an annual event which is held in Asia-Pacific.

Open to teams of undergraduates from selected universities in Australia and the mainland, the competition requires participants to work on case studies and develop business solutions in the same way as they would if they were working on actual mergers and acquisitions.

Karen Everett, manager of JPMorgan's Asia-Pacific graduate recruitment programme, said the competition, which was launched in Australia six years ago, was designed to provide undergraduates, about to enter their final year, with the sort of challenging experience they would encounter if they followed a career in investment banking.

'The exciting thing is that students are exposed to the dynamics, dilemmas and decisions of investment banking. The competition is complex and thoroughly absorbing - exactly like the real thing.

'This is a fantastic opportunity for undergraduate students to tackle interesting problems and receive mentoring, advice and first-hand feedback from JPMorgan bankers who do this kind of thing for a living,' Ms Everett said.

This year's event involved teams from the University of New South Wales, University of Sydney, University of Melbourne, University of Queensland, University of Western Australia, Peking University, Tsinghua University, Fudan University and Shanghai Jiao Tong University.

Beginning in March, the contestants took part in competitions within their own universities before the nine winning teams moved on to the national and country level competitions.

The final, which took place in September in Hong Kong, was won by the University of New South Wales, comprising Chen Lin, John Lin, Hugh Kim and Ben Guo, with Shanghai Jiao Tong University in second place.

The winning teams shared a prize money of US$1,000 for the university champions, with a further US$2,000 for the country champions and US$2,000 for the Asia-Pacific champions.

'The competition is a challenging opportunity to work as a team to develop modelling and analyse markets using comprehensive case studies. Whenever I go on campus, the feedback from those who have entered the competition is generally very positive,' Ms Everett said.

Those who take part in the competition are exposed to various new challenges and they can include the experience on their resume.

While not intended to be part of a recruitment exercise, Caroline Johnston, JPMorgan head of human resources Asia-Pacific, said that taking part in the competition provided participants with an insight into what JPMorgan could offer as an employer.

She said the company planned to recruit about 1,500 graduates across Asia-Pacific over the next 12 months.

'With some of the fastest-growing economies in the world, now is an exciting time to start a career in one of the most dynamic regions.

'We need top quality undergraduates to become part of our team and help run our global operations,' Ms Johnston said. New recruits could look forward to extensive on-the-job and specialist training.

She said the firm was looking for enthusiastic, career-minded university graduates to work in asset management, investment, private banking, treasury and securities services and back office positions.

Ms Johnston said in addition to working on country projects, many positions required the employee to travel and work on cross-border projects involving colleagues from different cultural backgrounds.

'The scale of the bank and global network provides career development and mobility opportunities within and across regions for talented, driven individuals,' Ms Johnston said.

She said a flat style of team structure meant that early responsibility was the reality, and interns and graduates were expected and encouraged to take ownership - and were rewarded for doing so. Also, broader exposure to clients, even at a junior level, provided opportunities to be involved with quality work with clients and increased responsibility.

'The size and scale of our global operations allows employees to experience a diverse range of career opportunities and life experiences,' Ms Johnston said.

She said the company took training seriously. For example, trainers include some of the finest minds from the world's best business schools and more than 500 of the firm's most senior people.

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