March 1, 2005
The Applied Corporate Finance Program in the School of Business at UW-Madison takes on some weighty financial questions from industry, here and abroad.
When a major corporation needs some special assistance in financial management — such as suggestions on how to deal with the fact it that it may have too much cash on hand — it can turn to the University of Wisconsin-Madison's Applied Corporate Finance Program (ACFIN) for expert advice.
ACFIN is the specialized MBA program in the School of Business for students aiming for careers in corporate finance.
Students in this small, intense MBA program are gaining a reputation for their competence, maturity and foresight as they work with organizations to come up with recommendations and solutions to companies' financial challenges. Each semester, teams of three ACFIN MBA students work on four separate projects.
Organizations such as John Deere, Deutsche Securities, Medtronic, Qualcomm, 3M, Procter & Gamble, Berbee Information Networks, Promega and American Family Insurance have used ACFIN student teams to help analyze various financial issues and challenges.
Training tomorrow's CFOs
While industry gains from their labor, the projects primarily are intended to provide growth and learning opportunities for the students, who often are the CFOs of the future.
They learn fast, according to Professor Jim Seward, who started the program in 1999. He says he sees them grow in confidence, competence and professionalism in each successive project.
"Sometimes, on their first project, students come to me and ask where they can find the answers, what references they should use," says Seward, who outlines team projects on one-page summary sheets. "I tell them to use everything they've learned until now and figure out what other resources they need. There is no right answer to these complex problems."
ACFIN teams are expected to distill everything they learned into a written presentation, then deliver their results in an oral presentation to CEOs and other high-level corporate executives. This experience gives students the opportunity to develop comfort with their own expertise as they face powerful executives, Seward says. He sees marked growth in competence as students move from their first project to their fourth.
"I almost think we should video tape before and after — to show the students' growth in confidence from their first presentation to their fourth," he says.
What can happen to a bad idea
Although Seward is available "100 percent of the time" for students as they work their way through complex problems, he says he will not speak at the actual presentations to the industry clients.
"I tell the students don't even look at me," he says.
He notes that if there is a mistake, or bad data, it could be torn to shreds by members of the sponsoring organization.
"I tell the students you don't know who's going to be in that room. If you're criticizing what you believe is a terrible idea, and the author of that idea and his boss are in the room, you're going to be in for a rough time," Seward says.
Students get research assistance from undergraduate finance students who serve as a part of each team. Advice also is available from ACFIN's 24-member board of advisers, executives in strategic finance positions around the country. Students often call on board members, says Seward, to help decide if they have covered all their bases as they work on their reports. Board members from organizations such as AOL Time Warner, Citigroup, UBS Securities can give them a broader perspective on issues.
ACFIN has worked with companies as small as four people, up to corporate giants such as Procter & Gamble and 3M.
What to do with $5 billion?
In most cases, the sponsoring businesses accept the students' oral and written reports and implement some — or all — of their ideas. In some cases, the advice is not taken. After doing a critical and strategic evaluation of the company with too much cash, the ACFIN team recommended the corporation give back between $4 billion and $5 billion to shareholders. The organization chose to give shareholders closer to $1 billion, but not because the answer was wrong.
"It was just too dramatic a move for the conservative company," Seward says. It was one of many real-world lessons students got as part of their ACFIN experiences.
ACFIN projects are performed at no charge to the sponsoring organization and present a wide variety of complex challenges. They range from evaluating characteristics of a company's major competitors to providing recommendations for improving internal financial reports. Students working with Kraft Foods, for example, were asked to determine the attractiveness — from a valuation standpoint — of acquiring more properties in the natural foods segment and to suggest strategies for growing that business segment.
Working in the international arena
Students recently took on a project that involved issues of hedging and risk management for Titan Petrochemicals & Polymers Berhad in Malaysia. Although many projects require an international perspective, it was ACFIN's first internationally based project.
Seward, who is the program's executive director, comes to Wisconsin from Dartmouth, where he taught a variety of finance subjects. ACFIN, he says, is the synthesis of everything he felt should be included in a program aimed at producing corporate finance officers. No other school has the level of student involvement in actual finance projects, he states. When he came to Wisconsin, he brought along many Wall Street contacts with him, and the desire to create a premier program in the area of corporate finance.
That fit right into the school's strategy of creating top-quality MBA programs that are career-focused. When Dean Michael Knetter came to the school in 2002, he deleted many of the school's MBA offerings. ACFIN not only survived, but a $6.4 million gift from Milwaukee financier Albert "Ab" Nicholas, with another $2 million from an anonymous donor, assured the program a future as one of the school's premier MBA programs. The home of the ACFIN program now is officially the Nicholas Center for Applied Corporate Finance. A grand opening of its new quarters was celebrated on Sept. 30.
How industry clients are served
ACFIN students enjoy the amenities of a top MBA program. While Seward works with students on the academic side, center Director Cindie Horner works to develop relationships with industry that include placement, internships and projects. She also coordinates ACFIN's alumni relations and board events and supervises the students who serve as research assistants to the ACFIN teams.
"Our ACFIN program is unique in the depth and breadth it offers students," says Knetter. "Jim Seward and Cindie Horner, with help from the gift from Ab Nicholas, have developed an outstanding applied corporate finance program — not only for Wisconsin, but as a model for anyone who wants to give their students real-world experience."
ACFIN is the specialized MBA program in the School of Business for students aiming for careers in corporate finance.
Professor Jim Seward teaching his MBA students.
Photos by Bob Rashid
Photos by Bob Rashid
Organizations such as John Deere, Deutsche Securities, Medtronic, Qualcomm, 3M, Procter & Gamble, Berbee Information Networks, Promega and American Family Insurance have used ACFIN student teams to help analyze various financial issues and challenges.
Training tomorrow's CFOs
While industry gains from their labor, the projects primarily are intended to provide growth and learning opportunities for the students, who often are the CFOs of the future.
They learn fast, according to Professor Jim Seward, who started the program in 1999. He says he sees them grow in confidence, competence and professionalism in each successive project.
"Sometimes, on their first project, students come to me and ask where they can find the answers, what references they should use," says Seward, who outlines team projects on one-page summary sheets. "I tell them to use everything they've learned until now and figure out what other resources they need. There is no right answer to these complex problems."
ACFIN teams are expected to distill everything they learned into a written presentation, then deliver their results in an oral presentation to CEOs and other high-level corporate executives. This experience gives students the opportunity to develop comfort with their own expertise as they face powerful executives, Seward says. He sees marked growth in competence as students move from their first project to their fourth.
"I almost think we should video tape before and after — to show the students' growth in confidence from their first presentation to their fourth," he says.
What can happen to a bad idea
Although Seward is available "100 percent of the time" for students as they work their way through complex problems, he says he will not speak at the actual presentations to the industry clients.
"I tell the students don't even look at me," he says.
He notes that if there is a mistake, or bad data, it could be torn to shreds by members of the sponsoring organization.
"I tell the students you don't know who's going to be in that room. If you're criticizing what you believe is a terrible idea, and the author of that idea and his boss are in the room, you're going to be in for a rough time," Seward says.
Students get research assistance from undergraduate finance students who serve as a part of each team. Advice also is available from ACFIN's 24-member board of advisers, executives in strategic finance positions around the country. Students often call on board members, says Seward, to help decide if they have covered all their bases as they work on their reports. Board members from organizations such as AOL Time Warner, Citigroup, UBS Securities can give them a broader perspective on issues.
ACFIN has worked with companies as small as four people, up to corporate giants such as Procter & Gamble and 3M.
What to do with $5 billion?
In most cases, the sponsoring businesses accept the students' oral and written reports and implement some — or all — of their ideas. In some cases, the advice is not taken. After doing a critical and strategic evaluation of the company with too much cash, the ACFIN team recommended the corporation give back between $4 billion and $5 billion to shareholders. The organization chose to give shareholders closer to $1 billion, but not because the answer was wrong.
"It was just too dramatic a move for the conservative company," Seward says. It was one of many real-world lessons students got as part of their ACFIN experiences.
ACFIN projects are performed at no charge to the sponsoring organization and present a wide variety of complex challenges. They range from evaluating characteristics of a company's major competitors to providing recommendations for improving internal financial reports. Students working with Kraft Foods, for example, were asked to determine the attractiveness — from a valuation standpoint — of acquiring more properties in the natural foods segment and to suggest strategies for growing that business segment.
Working in the international arena
Students recently took on a project that involved issues of hedging and risk management for Titan Petrochemicals & Polymers Berhad in Malaysia. Although many projects require an international perspective, it was ACFIN's first internationally based project.
Seward, who is the program's executive director, comes to Wisconsin from Dartmouth, where he taught a variety of finance subjects. ACFIN, he says, is the synthesis of everything he felt should be included in a program aimed at producing corporate finance officers. No other school has the level of student involvement in actual finance projects, he states. When he came to Wisconsin, he brought along many Wall Street contacts with him, and the desire to create a premier program in the area of corporate finance.
That fit right into the school's strategy of creating top-quality MBA programs that are career-focused. When Dean Michael Knetter came to the school in 2002, he deleted many of the school's MBA offerings. ACFIN not only survived, but a $6.4 million gift from Milwaukee financier Albert "Ab" Nicholas, with another $2 million from an anonymous donor, assured the program a future as one of the school's premier MBA programs. The home of the ACFIN program now is officially the Nicholas Center for Applied Corporate Finance. A grand opening of its new quarters was celebrated on Sept. 30.
How industry clients are served
ACFIN students enjoy the amenities of a top MBA program. While Seward works with students on the academic side, center Director Cindie Horner works to develop relationships with industry that include placement, internships and projects. She also coordinates ACFIN's alumni relations and board events and supervises the students who serve as research assistants to the ACFIN teams.
"Our ACFIN program is unique in the depth and breadth it offers students," says Knetter. "Jim Seward and Cindie Horner, with help from the gift from Ab Nicholas, have developed an outstanding applied corporate finance program — not only for Wisconsin, but as a model for anyone who wants to give their students real-world experience."
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