School of Accounting and Finance

Reale Born Inc. GM turns to fourth-year SAF students to help save company

After accepting the role of General Manager with Reale Born Inc. in April 2012, John Briggs noticed several areas within the custom, high-end design and metal fabrication company in Mississauga that caused him concern. Admitting a lack of knowledge in dealing with accounting and finance issues, Briggs turned to fourth-year students within the School of Accounting and Finance for some much needed guidance and advice that could potentially help save the company from permanently closing its doors.

Briggs provided students with a portfolio of RB’s work, five years of internal balance sheets and income statements, and other documentation as part of this year’s WATCase competition held in mid-September. Over the span of one week, 285 students in 60 groups reviewed the dismal information then formulated the best possible solutions to the problems at hand.

Faculty members, industry experts, and alumni joined Briggs in reviewing and scoring each presentation narrowing the competition down to a mere three groups. In the end, it was Nida Butt, Varoon Parekh, Devon Brigss, Xiu Yuan (Jessica) Chen, and Ishan Shekhar who provided the most feasible and thought provoking recommendations.
“This year's winning team provided John Briggs with a set of recommendations that addressed all of the important issues currently facing the company,” expresses Greg Berberich, SAF Professor.  “Most important, all of the recommendations were very practical, easy to implement, and considerate of the many constraints the company has to operate within.”

Just prior to announcing to the winning team, Briggs articulated his gratitude to the finalist teams and the School for giving him the opportunity to be the recipient of so much practical advice and guidance on the accounting, finance, and IT issues facing his company.

The SAF would like to congratulate the winning team as well as team #57 consisting of Calvin Wang, Yiwei Ian Weng, Faisal Rajan, and Shih-Hsien (Peter) Chen who came in second place. 

 

SAF
The School of Accounting and Finance is the only English speaking professional school of its kind in Canada. We offer 2 undergraduate (Accounting and Financial Management and Computing and Financial Management) and 3 graduate (Master of Accounting; Master of Taxation; PhD in Accounting) programs to provide students with the technical, analytical, evaluative, and communication skills needed to prepare for successful careers in public accounting, finance, industry, government and not-for-profit sectors. In conjunction with the Faculties of Mathematics and Science, the School also administers 2 undergraduate programs (Mathematics/Chartered Accountancy; Biotechnology/Chartered Accountancy) and 1 graduate program (Master of Quantitative Finance).