The Department of Real Estate and Business School Team (ECO) that represented NUS at the 4th USC Marshall International Real Estate Case Competition from 13-17 April 2009 emerged as the champions for the second time in a row. Six teams: University of Wisconsin, University of Texas, University of Colorado, Cornell University, University of South California and National University of Singapore took part in the competition.

The NUS team consisted of three students from the Department of Real Estate, namely: Jalleh Shaun Ming Yi (Captain), Tang Yong Ching and Yvonne Tan Yi Wen, and three students from Business School: Chong Kang Wei, Visayong Viravong and Wu Junhan, with Dr Kwame Addae Dapaah as the faculty advisor.

Each team was required to submit a written report and make oral presentation to the Oceanic Global Real Estate Opportunity Fund’s Investment Committee on the potential acquisition of the Rearden Portfolio. Each team was required to consider the totality of issues involved in the case to conclude whether, and under what conditions, the Fund should act to acquire the asset.

The case was released electronically on Monday, 13 April 2009. Each team was required to submit a written report to the USC Marshall School of Business in Los Angeles on Thursday, 16 April 2009. Two rounds of oral presentations were made before a panel of high-powered real estate developers, investors, fund managers, consultants and financiers including, among others, representatives from JP Morgan and CB Richard Ellis. Four finalists: University of Wisconsin, Connell University, University of South California and National University of Singapore were selected for the second round of oral presentation before a panel of 15 judges, all the competing teams and other invited guests. There was 20 minutes presentation followed by ten minutes of question and answers. In the end, NUS was declared the winner on the basis of the written report and excellent presentation which holistically and professionally addressed all the relevant issues in the case. University of Wisconsin was the runners-up, while University of Southern California and Cornell University were third and fourth respectively.

Professor Robert Bridges of USC, the organizer, described the team as “amazing” and that we should be proud of the team. This was confirmed later on by one of the judges who said: “Every judge pointed to ECO, the NUS team, as the winner”. NUS was the only team that was awarded full marks by five of the judges as attested by the Judges’ Score Sheet. The team was ranked first by nine judges and joint first by four judges – Thirteen of the sixteen judges ranked NUS first. Yes! The team did NUS proud.

•Names by which competing Teams were known to Judges.

Source: Collated from Judges’ Score Sheets at http://public.me.com/robertbridges > 2009 Undergrad Case Competition > 2009 Score Sheets.

You can view the whole presentation here