A group of students in the College of Business Administration placed in the top 10 out of 20 schools for their recommendation of a publically traded company.

The team included two master of business administration graduates, Aaron Ayme from Destrehan and Nolan Dumas from Thibodaux. It also included Kevin Gibson, finance senior from Houma, as well as two business administration graduate students Brett Cazenave from Vacherie and Brad LeBeouf from Larose. Team members were chosen by John Lajaunie, professor of finance, and Shari Lawrence, associate professor of finance.

This is the first year Nicholls participated in the competition sponsored by the Chartered Financial Analyst Institute, a leader in the analytical world of finance.

Their goal was to analyze a publically traded company picked by the CFA and present a buy, sell or hold recommendation based on the financial stability of that company. The team began working on their research in November. According to Lajaunie, they had between 60 and 90 days to put their recommendation together.

“It’s very realistic because in the industry, an analyst typically presents four ideas a year,” he said. “It’s one per quarter, which is about the time frame they had to work in.”

Lajaunie said a buy side report tells an investor or investment committee whether or not they should buy a company and provides an explanation why.

“It’s very technical as well as intuitive,” he said. “You can’t just run the numbers, you have to understand how everything fits together.”

Nicholls’ team analyzed Gamestop, a nationwide retailer of video and computer games. Lajaunie and Lawrence served as co-advisors to the team who were also mentored by Michelle Connell from Houston, Texas, who has 20 years of industry experience.

Dumas said Connell pushed the team along in the right direction and helped them to make an aggressive decision with their recommendation.

“We were leaning in one direction with our report and she helped push us along,” Dumas said.

On Feb. 7, the team submitted their analysis with a sell recommendation for the company.

The local division of competition was based in Dallas against larger schools such as the University of Texas Austin, Texas A&M, University of Oklahoma, Loyola and Tulane. Although the team placed in the top 10 of the local competition, they were still a few points away from being able to compete at the regional level of competition.

Dumas said, “For our first year, I think we did an OK job by getting in the top 10 out of 20 against big schools like Texas A&M.”

Lajaunie said he hopes to enroll in the competition next year and has no doubt that Nicholls will qualify for a winning position based on this year’s performance.

“We are very proud with what the first team to represent Nicholls has accomplished,” Lajaunie said. “They went against schools that are much larger than us and have more financial resources.”