Wharton team wins national real estate competition
Joe Spector, WG'07
Issue date: 11/13/06 Section: News
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The Challenge has become the preeminent real estate investment case competition in the country with participation by top MBA talent. Sixteen business schools are invited each year to compete by presenting a solution to a recent dilemma faced by The Whitehall Funds, which are a series of real estate private equity funds sponsored and managed by Goldman Sachs.
The team was led by Jed Brawley and Joe Spector with three second-years: Chris Bennett, Laura Campbell and Ian Cohen. Josh Morris was the only first-year Wharton team member. The Wharton team had a deep reservoir of experience from a wide variety of backgrounds which contributed to its success. Beyond our technical skill, our success was a reflection of the group chemistry that had developed over the course of the week required to develop our response to the case.
We received the case Tuesday morning, October 31st and were well prepared to tackle the problem at hand as we had spent the past month meeting occasionally to discuss previous year's cases. These meetings enabled us to develop group rapport prior to the rigors of the competition. Over the course of the next two days, in true undergradesque fashion, we owned a conference room at the library. The one constant throughout the grueling process was the humor which kept our sanity, with constant references to Anchorman and Borat, in particular the true meaning of "San Diego" and "Agreeing to disagree". Without having had much sleep we came up with a product that would have made us proud even if we had not won.
The case involved an investment made in late 2000 in a suburban office complex along a technology corridor. With the benefit of hindsight we knew that 2000 was the peak of the technology market. With the general market downturn that arrived soon after, the property became distressed with high vacancy and a potentially bankrupt anchor tenant, and was faced with many obstacles to successful realization of value. The key question that remained throughout the deal was: Do you fold your cards or do you play for the river card?
After arriving in Austin, Texas on Thursday afternoon we worked on finishing up our presentation and making it to the cocktail hour/dinner with the judges. Leaving the dinner to practice our presentation, we could not believe the incredible cast of judges - these were the industry leaders, CEOs and Principals of some of the top domestic and international real estate firms. We left the dinner feeling anxious, partially because we had yet to practice our presentation and partially because the judges would see through any gaps in our knowledge.
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