WBS undergraduates win UBS-sponsored prizes for excellence in Financial Management

No fewer than eight WBS undergraduates have won prizes for their outstanding performances in Financial Management and Foundations of Financial Management modules. The prizes were sponsored by the investment bank UBS.

Xuewen Liu, Boon Guan Kua, Benediktas Petkevicius and Zhanbota Mukasheva shared the £200 prize for Financial Management, which is a core module for first-year BSc Accounting and Finance students. Vlad Teodorescu, Vivian Li, Natalie Pilling and Giedrius Satkauskas shared the £200 prize for the Foundations core module for first-year BSc Management, BSc International Management and BSc International Business students, and also a very popular elective for first-year BA Law and Business Studies students.

The prizes were presented at an evening event held in the Ramphal lecture theatre on the Warwick campus on Tuesday, 16 November, and attended by some 140 undergraduates.

The prize-giving was followed by a case-study presentation by Warwick alumnus Tobias Wagnert (Executive Director, UBS Investment Banking) about the recent privatisation of the UK's first high-speed railway (HS1), the outcome of which was only made public on 5 November. The evening was rounded off with a drinks reception, courtesy of UBS, at which students had an opportunity to network informally with each of the six UBS representatives present.

Tobias Wagnert commented afterwards, "As a leading global investment bank, recruiting the best graduates is critical for our continued success. We are very excited about our strong relationship with the University of Warwick, which is one of our key target universities in Europe. In 2010 our Investment Banking Department recruited more graduates from the University of Warwick than from any other university in the UK."

Professor Peter Corvi, Associate Dean of the WBS UG Programme, added, "As in previous years, WBS is extremely grateful to UBS for sponsoring these prizes and for hosting the drinks reception, and of course to Tobias and his colleagues for taking time out of their busy schedules to come to Warwick. The audience this evening is very privileged to be the first to hear Tobias talk about the £2.1 billion sale of High Speed 1 and the role of UBS as lead advisor in that sale. The students who attended this evening's event have also had an opportunity to speak to people working in different areas of UBS, and will have gained valuable insights into the world of investment banking as a result."

Professor Mark Taylor, Dean of Warwick Business School, commented, "I am extremely proud of the standards that our students achieve and that UBS continues to recognise WBS as a key target institution."