WHAT IS ACG CUP NORTHWEST?

OVERVIEW

The Portland Chapter of Association for Corporate Growth® (ACG) is proud to host ACG Cup® Northwest, a ‘real world’ finance-related competition.

The ACG Cup® case-study competition provides MBA, graduate and undergraduate finance majors an opportunity to solve a real-world issue in a high-pressure setting. Students are challenged to find solutions for a finance-related case in the field of mergers and acquisitions, investment banking, financial advisory and private equity. After the teams analyze the case and agree upon a course of action, the students make presentations to a panel of judges comprised of successful corporate executives in the field of finance.

Team organization for the 2021 event will begin in November/December, 2020. In early January, Part 1 of the case will be distributed to the competing teams so that students may begin preparing. ACG Cup Northwest liaisons will assist the schools and the teams in the process. If there are multiple teams within a school, an intra-school competition will take place as only one team is allowed per school to advance to the semi-finals. Teams advancing to the semi-finals will be given Part 2 of the case in early February.

The 2021 competition will be a virtual event because of COVID meeting restrictions. Details will be announced by early January how the competition process will be organized. Similar to prior years, there will be two tracks… one track for Oregon schools and one track for Washington schools. At the end of the competition, there will be a virtual award ceremony for the winning teams. There are no entry fees and up to $12,000 will be awarded to the top four teams by Umpqua Bank.

PROGRAM BENEFITS

ACG Cup Northwest provides an opportunity to support local universities and our next generation leaders of finance while, at the same time, gaining valuable community exposure. Sponsors, schools, guests and students all benefit; interactions between businesses, students, individual leaders and top university MBA program representatives build brand and impact the community in the best of ways. The ACG Cup® Northwest competition is popular with professionals, sponsors and leading finance programs in the Northwest from Oregon and Washington. View our Sponsors page and the Universities page to learn about our esteemed sponsors and participating schools.

Program benefits include:

Valuable new connections are formed between faculty, students and business leaders
Real world experience is gained by taking students out of the classroom and putting them squarely on deck with real world business challenges
Students gain new relationships with specific business leaders from leading organizations
Brands are shared and program awareness for schools is built across the community
Students gain insight into corporate finance through a variety of perspectives
Sponsors, guests and students may develop relationships with potential employers, employees, team members and mentors
Students apply critical academic skills and classroom knowledge to a highly realistic M&A case study while enhancing and polishing presentation, team-building and networking capabilities
Prizes represent meaningful cash awards for students and positive press for schools and sponsors

HEAR WHAT UNIVERSITY PROGRAM LEADERS HAVE TO SAY ABOUT ACG CUP NORTHWEST:

“The UO’s Lundquist College of Business is excited to be part of the ACG Cup® Northwest – a premier opportunity for students to showcase their knowledge in the area of corporate mergers and acquisitions. These sorts of experiential activities help students apply their classroom knowledge and interact with industry professionals in a very realistic setting.” —Michele Henney, Program Director of the University of Oregon Finance Securities Analysis Center

“We enthusiastically support and look forward to participating in the ACG Cup® Northwest case competition. For many years, the University of Washington’s Foster School of Business has sent student teams to intercollegiate case competitions at both the undergraduate and graduate level. We believe events such as the ACG Cup® challenge our students to pull together all the things they have learned in a program to address an intriguing problem with a team of classmates, come up with a creative solution, and experience the thrill of presenting and defending a complete proposal to judges who are industry professionals.” — Dan Poston, Assistant Dean for Master’s Programs at the Foster School of Business, University of Washington