Twenty-seven teams of Berkeley undergraduates, including 44 Haas students, evaluated whether electric vehicle maker Tesla Motors should go public as part of the 13th annual Investment Banking Competition hosted by the Haas Undergraduate Program and Goldman Sachs.
The teams submitted their final presentations for the competition Sept. 28. A review committee composed of Haas faculty and Goldman Sachs professionals will select three teams to compete in the final round of the competition on Thursday, Oct. 7, from 6 p.m. to 9:30 p.m. in the Wells Fargo Room. The event is open to the public.
During the final competition, the finalists will make a 15-minute presentation followed by questions from judges. After judges announce the winner, they will critique the presentations and discuss what actually happened with Tesla, with time for questions from the audience.
The event will be attended by Mike Taylor, Tesla's vice president of finance, and several Goldman Sachs executives, including Lev Finkelstein, a vice president in the investment banking division; Nick Giovanni, a managing director in the investment banking division; and Hatim Sukhla, BS 10, an analyst, who wrote the case.
The case takes students back to mid-2010, before Tesla actually did race out of the gate with a blockbuster IPO. Students were asked to answer questions about valuation, IPO timing, and capital raising alternatives for Tesla amid challenging economic and IPO environments, increasing volatility in equity markets, and concerns about a weakening global economy. Each team created five- to ten-page presentations for the case.