MFin Capstone Brochure

Master of Finance CAPSTONE PROJECT

MFin Capstone Project The Master of Finance (MFin) at the UCI Paul Merage School of Business is a STEM-Certified, intensive one-year program that develops graduates who are eminently qualified for asset management and corporate finance careers. The MFin Capstone Project provides master’s level finance students an opportunity to apply their skills by working on real-life finance problems with industry partners. Our students are taught by world-class faculty and leading researchers to help students create valuable collateral that plays a critical role in decision-making and in the design or delivery of products and services.

The goal of the MFin Capstone Project is to provide real-world experience to our students while providing you with real value.

Benefits Identify and explore from our talent pool of leading graduate finance students from a team of 4-6.

Explore projects that you currently do not have the time or expertise to complete. All projects are supervised by faculty or industry advisors.

Receive actionable insights and useful project analysis to drive business decisions.

Our MFin students can leverage the Merage School Bloomberg terminals and UCI Libraries’ powerful databases featuring U.S. and global company, industry, marketing, economic, and scholarly information.

UC Irvine waives the ownership position of any intellectual property (models, analysis, findings, etc.) developed.

There is no monetary cost to participate.

Sample Projects • Canterbury Consulting

Value proposition of self-funded healthcare

• First American Trust

Capital structure analysis

• IPC (USA) Inc.

Product pricing and hedging analysis

• KPMG

Natural language processing of loan applications related to Care Act

• Mazda USA

Building model(s) to rationalize media spending and transaction pricing, incentives to optimize market share

• MIG Capital

Develop investment thematic frameworks by analyzing historical stock performance

• Pacific Life

Research on machine learning signals on future investment decisions

• Research Affiliates

Analysis of equity, value and operating profitability model in trading

• Rimrock Capital

Data extraction, analysis and profit driven trading

• Roth Capital

Prospect development, strategic alternatives for sell/buy-side engagements

• Tech Coast Angels

Conducting due diligence for early-stage investment

• The Cove Fund II

Preparing due diligence for VC Investment

• Viasat

Strategic analysis – capital structure and cost of capital

• Wells Fargo Capital

Validate a dynamic leveraged-lending model in technology space.

• Western Digital

Implementing a data analytics strategy to deliver key insights and critical performance improvements by establishing tools, metrics and reports for the global real estate organization

Timeline Winter

• Master of Finance (MFin) staff and faculty will meet with you to help define the challenge to be addressed.

• NDA’s are Signed and Data is transferred.

Spring

Summer

• A team of four to six MFin students will be assigned to each project in May.

• A final presentation will be delivered to the company at the conclusion of the project in August.

• Regular communication and updates occur throughout the five-month project.

• All deliverables (final report, presentation, models, analysis, findings, etc.) will be provided at the conclusion of the project.

Commitment

“I was impressed with the MFin Capstone team and their ability to uncover complex life insurance

• Help define a 12-week project that is comprehensive enough to enable students to demonstrate breadth and depth of knowledge.

industry specific concepts. They were creative, enthusiastic and professional while delivering what

• Provide actual data and insights to the student team.

they set out to accomplish. I was pleased with the

• Name a project liaison to work with the student team – we anticipate the liaison to spend 1-2 hours per week on the project.

scope of their analysis and quality of their final

• Attend your team’s kickoff meeting, midpoint meeting, and final presentation (at your office/site).

presentation. Thanks to their efforts, we are further analyzing various points they uncovered. We look forward to working with the MFin Capstone program again!”

–Bob O’ Meara, Director, Financial Planning & Analysis, Pacific Life

Fall • ProSeminar • Foundations of Finance • Financial Reporting • Electives

Spring • ProSeminar • Risk Management • Electives

Program Curriculum Emily Lee, MFin'20

Winter • ProSeminar • Derivatives • Financial Research and Methodology • Electives

Summer • ProSeminar • Capstone Project • Electives

MFin Class of 2021 Class Profile

Undergraduate Degrees

Applications Received

1,557

Class Size

120

Average GPA

3.50

Average GMAT

646

Average Work Experience

1.93

Percentage of domestic students

38%

Percentage of domestic URM Age Range

35.7% Economics

1.6% Engineering 0.8% Health Sciences 1.6% Humanities 1.6% Computer Sciences 3.2% Physical Sciences 1.6% Social Sciences

6% 20-47

Women 54%

Men 46%

54% Business Administration

Countries and Regions Represented Bangladesh, Cambodia, Canada, China, Hong Kong, India, Indonesia, Italy, Japan, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, Taiwan, United States, and Vietnam

Undergraduate Universities Represented (60) UC Irvine 24.6%

Other UC Schools Other CA Schools 11.9% 14.3%

Other U.S. Schools 27.8%

International 21.4%

The project is not intended to be a research and development effort or to result in any intellectual property. UC Irvine waives the ownership position to any intellectual property (models, analysis, findings, etc.) developed by the students during the course of the project and defer ownership to the partner company. UC Irvine requests that all company data be de-identified prior to release to the team(s). Data that contains personally identifiable information or personal health information or is subject to information security and privacy laws. Under no circumstances can our Capstone teams receive or use information that is export controlled or military sensitive. For those companies that request nondisclosure agreements, we typically accept your company’s standard NDA.

Nick Shaffer Director of External Relations 4291 Pereira Drive, SB2 Suite 230 Irvine, CA, 92697-3125 nshaffer@uci.edu, 949.824.6293 Master of Finance 4293 Pereira Drive, SB1 Suite 4500 Irvine, CA, 92697-3125 mfin@merage.uci.edu

merage.uci.edu/MFin