The CFA Institute® Research Challenge is a competition between university-sponsored teams. Each team had to research a designated publicly traded company, prepare a written report on the selected company and then present their findings to a panel of judges. The competition consists of local, regional and global levels. Winners at local level advance to compete against teams within their geographic region at regional level. Winning teams at regional level then advance to compete at global level. One team is designated the ultimate winning team at global level. The local leg of the competition was hosted by CFA South Africa.

The University of Pretoria team members were selected based on their academic merit and presentation skills. The subject company for analysis, Bidvest, proved to be an interesting challenge. The team submitted the written report of their analysis for grading and was chosen to compete against the University of Johannesburg, the University of Cape Town and the University of Stellenbosch in the final presentations, which were delivered to a panel of judges at the Johannesburg Country Club. The University of Pretoria won the local challenge and will compete in the EMEA (Europe, Middle-East and Africa) regional in London during February/March 2012.

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