A team of students from WU Vienna, consisting of Philipp Höfinger, Teresa Cabric, Nina Hoffmann, Sophia Pannermayr, and Alexander Stanek, was able to convince the jury with their company analysis at the Austrian final of this year's CFA Research Challenge. Faculty mentor was WU Professor Manfred Frühwirth, who provided academic guidance to the team. As practical mentor, Matthias Runte (Mastercard) supported them.

According to the press release, this means that a team from WU Vienna has won the national competition for the third consecutive time. The winning team will now represent the CFA Society Austria at the Sub-Regional Final at the European level in March.

The CFA Research Challenge is an international student competition initiated by the CFA Institute (an international professional association for investment professionals). Worldwide, around 7,000 students from over 1,100 universities participated in the 2025/26 academic year.

The teams analyze a publicly listed company based on publicly available information and a management interview, prepare a stock analysis report with company valuation and investment recommendation, and present their results to a jury. In this year's Austrian round, the competition participants had to analyze the publicly listed energy and infrastructure company EVN. The jury evaluated, among other things, the methodological derivation of the company valuation, the coherence of the investment argumentation, and the professionalism of the presentation.

The competition is held on several levels. The national final is followed by the sub-regional final (Western Europe), then the EMEA semifinal (Europe, the Middle East, and Africa) and the EMEA final, and finally the global final.