The University of Maryland’s Robert H. Smith School of Business announced Tuesday that a team of UW-Madison School of Business MBA students won second place at a national Mergers & Acquisitions competition earlier this month.

According to Robert Trainer, a second-year MBA student who was on UW-Madison’s team, the competition held Oct. 11 and 12, was the first for the team. The competition was also the first for the University of Maryland and the only M&A competition in the country, he said.

“The idea behind the competition is to simulate a real world investment banking pitch on an M&A idea,” Trainer said. “We were given a case at noon on Thursday, and had to hand in our presentation by 6 a.m. Friday morning.”

He said his team presented a simulated version of a hypothetical presentation to the board and management team of their assigned “client.”

“We stayed up all night doing financial analysis and industry analysis on a potential acquisition that we recommended our client make,” Trainer said.

Other team members included UW-Madison MBA students Andy Bruno, Karl Poehls and Heather Pahl.

According to Carrie Handwerker, public relations associate for University of Maryland’s business school, teams from 10 schools were judged in two rounds.

She said four teams, including UW-Madison’s, advanced to the finals where corporate executives, Wall Street bankers and various academic professionals judged them.

“With mergers and acquisitions, everything comes into play––financials, strategy, presentation––forcing students to bring in everything that they’ve learned,” Howard Frank, dean of the Robert H. Smith School of Business, said in a statement. “All the teams did a remarkable job with the case they were given under tight deadline pressure.”

UW-Madison’s team won $2,500. Columbia Business School won first prize and $5,000.