KPMG Investment Challenge: Berkeley’s Money Chasers end up in the dough

And the last shall be first.

Well, almost. Berkeley’s Money Chasers were next to last after the first round of the KPMG Investment Challenge, but they finished strong to win top honours and $10,000 for their school.

Prizes were handed out yesterday afternoon at the Bermuda Society of Arts where the 16 teams from eight schools accepted their accolades. 

The top four spots were dominated by Berkeley (first and third) and BHS (second and fourth) while the youngest team, Somersfield Academy, was fifth.

Throughout the contest, the lead changed several times with both the Bermuda Institute’s Profitbulls and CedarBridge Academy’s T & Ls eKard taking a turn at the top.

But it was the Money Chasers who surged at the end to finish with $59,799.15, just over $3,000 more than second place The Undecideds. 

Faiz Shakir, team captain for the Money Chasers, told the Bermuda Sun: “This feels great. We were pretty positive because once we looked at the stocks and what happened the last few months, we knew where we were headed so we were pretty confident we were going to win.”

Shakir declined to disclose which stocks helped them leap past the rest of the field, wanting to hold on to that trade secret for next season. 

He said in February the team “researched the stock market and how it worked. We picked out stocks that worked for our advantage. We skyrocketed from there”.

Besides an insight of how stock markets work, the Berkeley winners learned a lot about teamwork and co-operation.

Shakir said: “Things don’t always go the way you want. I learned how to work more efficiently.”

BHS picked up the second-place cheque of $6,000 while the third-place cheque of $4,000 went to Somersfield.

Youngest

The contest rules stated that a school could win only one cheque because of multiple entries, which allowed the team of 11- to 13-year-olds to sneak in and bring glory to Somersfield.

Robert Lyons, Somersfield teacher, said: “When we started from day 1, we thought is we could crack the top five, we would have reached our goal.”

He said the challenge for Somersfield was doing research.

“It wasn’t going to be our strong suit,” Lyons said. “They had to focus on companies that they were familiar with or that the public would have a better appreciation of and that’s how we selected some of the companies that we chose.”

Somersfield’s Yassine Chentouf, 12, said: “This was a lot of fun. I was definitely surprised by what our best company was — Delta. We also invested in Apple and Netflix, which was our second-best company.”

Education Minister Dr Grant Gibbons told the students this is something his department needs to continue to support. “Thank you, KPMG, again for a terrific job in supporting this programme. I commend you and I hope it continues.” 

Click here to download the final results.