Chartered Financial Analyst Research Challenge Spring 2017: Valuation of Western Alliance Bancorporation

Abstract

The Chartered Financial Analyst (CFA) Research Challenge is designed to allow students to showcase their valuation and industry research techniques in front of one of the most prestigious financial valuation organizations in the world. The purpose of participating in this challenge was for us, a select group of Finance majors in the Eller College of Management, to showcase the skills we have learned in our education to the Honors College and to represent the school in a prestigious national competition. We were tasked with going above and beyond what we have learned in class, applying our curious minds to figure out new and better ways to conduct our research and find the value of this financial institution. The final result is a report that we have turned in to the CFA society, which can also be found at the end of this document. Our conclusions tell us that the bank, Western Alliance Bancorporation, is overvalued on the New York Stock Exchange and that investors should be selling the stock, not buying or holding it currently. Our valuation and research methods are disclosed below, as well as the data we used to back up our claims.