Student Team to present their response to National Real Estate Challenge Competition

Cornell Real Estate Industry Seminar
Date: March 1, 2007
When: 4:30 – 6:30 pm
Where: 396 Beck
Admittance: Open

The Cornell Team presentation will occur in conjunction with Stuart Brodsky’s presentation on Green Building, Sustainability, and Energy Star.

Cornell students Andrew Chiao, Michael Cook, Matt Holzemer, and Benjamin Weissbourd, from the Johnson Graduate School of Management, and Daniel Lentz and Reza Tabatabai, from the Program in Real Estate competed in the National Real Estate Challenge on November 3rd,2007. Hosted by the McCombs School of Business at the University of Texas at Austin, the annual case-based competition involves sixteen of the top graduate real estate and business programs in the United States. Each school entered a team of up to six students. With no more than 2 first-year students per team.

This year’s case (“Project Triple Play”), written by Goldman Sachs, involved analysis of a commercial office investment opportunity on behalf of a global real estate opportunity fund. Competitors were required to analyze and make consultative recommendations to judges on three separate issues pertaining to the investment. First, teams made recommendations regarding the potential purchase of new high-tech office buildings in an existing commercial campus; second, teams analyzed a long-term lease proposal for a portion of the campus; and finally, teams addressed the potential bankruptcy of the site’s anchor tenant and proposed risk mitigation strategies.

The final analysis prepared and presented by the Cornell team in the less than 3-day competition will be exciting to see.

Judges for the competition included a panel of professionals from a variety of firms such as Goldman Sachs, Bank of America, The Lionstone Group, KeyBank Real Estate Capital, and Crescent Real Estate Equities. The competition provided an outstanding opportunity for participants to gain exposure to the complex challenges faced by real estate professionals.