By Geoffrey Hills (Nicholas 2013)

On a special Wednesday edition of Current Topics, first- and second-year CFIB students convened for a presentation by Anita Pramoda the CFO of Epic Systems on Dodd-Frank: What it means to non-finance companies. Epic Systems is a Madison area, private company and is the US's largest Electronic Medical Record software provider. Anita Pramoda admitted that the presentation topic was one her team spent researching out of academic interest and not out of current impact to Epic. The presentation was a practice run through the material that the Epic group is planning on giving to the NYSE. The presentation was interactive, and even featured dueling professors - Jim Seward and Joan Schmit.

The presentation started with a look at the Republic of Congo and the legislations' impact on the country's tantalum production used primarily in electronics. In 2012, the US government mandates that tantalum sourced from Republic of Congo be disclosed which disincentives US listed companies from using the metal. The regulations introduced volatility due to supply restrictions - Congo sources 15-20% of the world's supply. The group was challenged to discuss and understand the impacts of the legislation to businesses.

The presentation continued with the second topic of the new regulations on the derivatives market - a 600 trillion dollar market. The Dodd-Frank act introduces new regulations and requires a clearing house and the group looked at the financial impact of the required margin deposits.

The group left after a "write a letter to Congress" plea from Anita - a good reminder to stay involved, educated, and active in academic and political topics.

By Lynn Han (Nicholas 2013)
November 11, 2011

On Friday, November 11th, at the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month of the eleventh year, the Nicholas Center CFIB Class of 2013 was fortunate enough to have a great presence from Johnson Controls - Nicholas Center Board Member Susan Kreh, Vice President Finance in Power Solutions, with her three team members, and Mike Leske, Executive Director of Leadership Development.

Mike Leske led off the round of presentations. Mike has been in the Human Resource department of the company for an impressive 21 years, and has had a close relationship with the Nicholas Center for five years. Mike gave us a brief introduction of Johnson Controls' history, business development, and the company's engagement in global communities. He also shared excellent financial performance of the company for fiscal 2011 with the revenue increase by 19% to $40.7B and the profit increase by 9% to $1.6B. Before fiscal 2008, Johnson Controls achieved 67 consecutive years of increased revenue and 37 years of increased earnings in its 125 years' history. This performance excites everyone who wants to work for a growing company with a great collaborative culture.

Following Mike, Susan and her team shared their exciting projects for commercializing innovation and developing new business models for the existing products. Power Solutions business has expanded remarkably as the world's largest supplier of lead-acid batteries. It gained 26% return on investment, the highest return among three businesses in fiscal 2011. With the challenge of not being able to acquire companies because of anti-trust barriers, Power Solutions devotes its energy toward two core values, innovation and sustainability, to be a continually profitable growth engine for the company.

Nolan Ott first shared with us his experience with the leadership development program (JCLE). He worked on a nine person team from different units and functions with the task of better commercializing innovation. Based on the growth roadmap of building on core business with emerging markets in the middle and technology on the top, his team recommended a strategy for the company to maintain its comparative advantage by keeping technology updated.

It is also impressive that finance people are so comfortable talking about technology. Yulia Jigalina and Kari Gilbertson shared their experience for product innovation with the focus on start-stop technology. The innovation program consists of three phases - opportunity phase for diversities in thought from different functions, pursuit phase for evaluating new business ideas, and realization phase for how to make and market products. They engaged in identifying target product markets, determining delivery channels, and deciding on how to produce the product through benchmarking internally and externally. It was an amazing experience to learn how the company develops different business models to address regional differences and how Johnson Controls intends to pursue growth opportunities geographically.

As a student interested in corporate finance, the opportunity offered by Johnson Controls excites me because of the potential to develop future leaders. Moreover, it impressed me that the finance unit is so deeply involved in business growth, and contributes to the company's long-term sustainability. Another take-away from their group project is that cross-functional execution helps build relationships throughout the group and is an opportunity to learn how to communicate effectively and to work together as a team.

By Ken Wooddell (Nicholas 2012)

One of the benefits of being a second-year Nicholas Center student is the opportunity to work on the applied corporate finance consulting projects. The projects are an excellent opportunity for us to build upon the skills we have developed in the program while applying them to real-world settings. Unlike traditional classroom exercises, the challenges we face are often ones management teams are struggling with themselves and central to that company's strategic vision. Not only is there not a clear "correct" answer, but the recommendations we present are frequently relied upon to influence key management decisions.

This fall, I was fortunate enough to work on a project for one of the center's most esteemed contributors, Best Buy. Projects were assigned to teams from the moment we arrived back on campus and only a few short weeks before the first round of presentations at the annual board meetings. The tight deadlines made for some long sessions, but were well worth it as it allowed us to audition our presentations to our very diverse and accomplished board of advisors. The feedback we received from the Board was positive and opened our eyes to a number of approaches and suggestions we had not yet considered. Looking back, it would be hard to imagine presenting our initial draft to Best Buy without their input.

Aaron Walsh - Spencer Morse - Professor Seward - Canan Ozkan - Ken Wooddell

Although the Board presentation marked a major milestone, our work was far from over. We continued to revisit our analysis and refine the presentation over the next couple of weeks before eventually driving to Minneapolis to present our final recommendations to the client.

Arriving at Best Buy was an exciting moment for all of us. We were welcomed by Nicholas Center Board Member and Best Buy Controller, Kirk Geadelmann, as well as a number of Nicholas Center alums. Kirk had worked with us throughout the project and this represented our first opportunity to present our recommendations to him and his team in person. Once again, our presentation was well-received and led to some interesting discussion and insights from members of the audience. Overall, the Best Buy project was an excellent experience from beginning to end. I look forward to future projects and can only hope they turn out as well as this one.

Thanks again to Kirk and Professor Seward for allowing this project to happen.

By Peter McCarty (Nicholas 2013)

For the first November edition of our "Current Topics in Finance" class, the Nicholas Center was lucky to be visited by Fred Johnson, Managing Director at Middle Market Invesetment Bank William Blair. Fred completed his undergraduate work at the University of Wisconsin, and had high praise for the city of Madison - he was happy to be back, and we were equally thrilled to be hosting him! The focus of our session was the equity market, an area that Fred is very familiar with through his work at William Blair.

As a student who is interested in an investment banking career myself, getting to hear about a day in the life of an industry executive was a real privilege. A major part of Fred's role is working in PIPE, that is, Private Investment in Public Equity. Although most of us students are less familiar with PIPE as a financing mechanism for public companies, Fred shed light on the fact that this is growing in popularity for companies wanting to issue equity, especially because there is a lower regulatory burden using this method compared to a more traditional secondary equity offering.

In addition to hearing about Fred's on-the-job responsibilities, he also gave us a substantial overview about the valuation methodologies that bankers use for equity securities. As one could imagine, there is never one correct answer when approaching the question of how to value a company, but Fred spent time going through the pros and cons of the mainstream equity valuation methods.

One of the most useful features of our "Current Topics" sessions has been the ability to pick up "nuggets" of salient industry knowledge, and Fred shared several with us. In the academic world, it's easy to get wrapped up in the technicalities of equity valuation, but one of Fred's points that stuck with me is that Supply and Demand are the forces that really drive equity valuation (and often, these are not in lockstep with fundamentals). Another excellent point was that there tends to be a material liquidity difference between large cap and small cap equities, so the market tends to be more efficient at valuing larger companies than it does at valuing smaller ones.

Hearing Fred speak to our class reinforced my interest in investment banking as a career. It was a pleasure to have him, and hopefully we will be lucky enough to have him again!

By Warren Wilson (Nicholas 2012)

Friday, October 14th was the second and final day of the annual Board of Advisors meeting for the Nicholas Center for Corporate Finance and Investment Banking. The day got started early with a classic Grainger Hall continental breakfast. The first speaker of the day (Doug Baird, Chairman of the Equity Capital Markets for the Americas, Citigroup) was broadcast to us live straight from New York City. It was great to receive firsthand insight about the current state of the equity markets along with some humorous anecdotes about the Wall Street protesters. Doug really emphasized the importance of not being afraid to get "internationalized" early and quickly in your career.

Wei Hong Chen - Tom Vomastic - Brace Clement - Sean Gilmore

After the web conference with Doug, we were privileged to hear from an experienced panel of professionals who constantly deal with the fluctuations in the financial markets. The panel included Gary Cole (Antares Intl. Partners Inc.), Dennis Duerst (3M), Patrick Hammes (Robert W. Baird), and Roberto Morales (Adage Capital). Terry Maxwell (Robert W. Baird) moderated the discussion. An overarching theme of the discussion pointed out how unpredictable and volatile the market has become recently. Managers must have a comfort level with making decisions without having every piece of detail necessary. First of all, there will always be uncertainty. Secondly, if you wait to get all the information, someone else will beat you to the opportunity.

Following the panel discussion, two MBA student teams were able to present the current state of their applied corporate finance projects for Qualcomm and 3M. The Board provided valuable insight and feedback, which certainly helped sharpen the presentations and analysis.

Bruce Cohen

A second panel discussion which related more specifically to corporate finance was then moderated by Bruce Cohen. The distinguished panel participants were Barb Bolens (Quad Graphics), Kirk Geadelmann (Best Buy), Bill Keitel (Qualcomm), Andy Olen (Abbot t Vascular), and Jeff Yurcisin (Shopbop). It was encouraging to hear of so many opportunities for success in certain niches of the economy. The panel counseled students to be bold throughout their future careers and to frequently voice their opinions, even when their opinions are not popular.

Andy Olen - Jeff Yurcisin - Barb Bolens

Overall, the Board of Advisors meeting provided great exposure for the current students to interact with successful and experienced professionals. The advice and perspectives that were shared definitely benefitted all the students in attendance.

By Cindie Adams

Last Friday, we were fortunate to have Nicholas Center Board member, Andy Olen, General Manager, Latin America & Canada for Abbott Vascular lead a presentation skills workshop for our first-year students. Andy began the workshop by delivering abbreviated examples of presentations that he had recently given to various audiences throughout his company. He emphasized creating emotion through pictures and keeping the message simple. "Bring the X-factor!" Each student then had three minutes to deliver a prepared presentation. Topics ranged from "How To Bring Offshore Corporate Cash Reserves Home" to "Refining Student Loans and Student Debt" to "Introducing the Sports Nutrition Product, EAS (coincidentally an Abbott product) to the Chinese Market." Overall, Andy was very impressed by the comfort level and confidence of the entire class, and provided great feedback to each presenter.
Everyone had 30 minutes to apply Andy's strategies to improve their presentations. I was impressed by the transformation in delivering a solid "situation", "recommendation" and "rationale", and the incorporation of pictures to drive the message home.

Andy finished with a few closing recommendations:

• Know yourself, be yourself
• Know your audience
• Passion goes a long way
• Sell It!
• Practice, practice, practice.

A huge thank you to Andy Olen for delivering a lively and valuable workshop! Part 2 is next semester.

By Jishnu Guhathakurta (Nicholas 2012)

Thursday, October 13th was the first day of the two-day Board of Advisors meeting for the Nicholas Center for Corporate Finance and Investment Banking. At about 3pm the students and Board met over snacks and soft drinks. After a few minutes of introduction, the stage was set for the second-year students to present their applied corporate finance projects which they have been preparing for weeks. The goal was to solicit the advice and suggestions of the board members before the projects are presented to the sponsoring client companies. The presentation went splendidly and in my estimation, the Board was very pleased to see the caliber of work being produced by the students.

Cathy Durham (Capital Valuation) - Dennis Duerst (3M) - Eric Larson (Ticonderoga Securities LLC)

After the presentations were over, a reception and cocktail hour was set for all to mingle and get to know each other. The second-year students could relax post their presentation, and the first-year students got to introduce themselves to the board members and garner their career advice. The room was buzzing, and everyone was having a grand time. The reception was a beautiful lead-in to the next event on the calendar, the M. Keith Weikel Executive Leadership Speaker Series.

Once every month, the Wisconsin School of Business hosts a speaker series where industry leaders discuss leadership, integrity, business issues, and social issues, and also share their experiences with the MBA students. The guest speakers for this Weikel series were Ab Nicholas, who is the eponym of the Nicholas Center, and Coach Bo Ryan, who is the immensely successful coach for the Wisconsin's Men's basketball team. The discussion was moderated by the dean of the business school, Francois Ortalo-Magne.

I thoroughly enjoyed the event as both speakers drew examples from athletics and business highlighting the similarities between the two and the similar skills required to be successful in both arenas.The talk was filled with humor and lively storytelling and the students had the opportunity to ask questions and seek some sage advice. Everyone was glued to their seats and before you knew it an hour had passed. The day was busy, rewarding, intellectually stimulating and allowed us to network with business leaders. It is days like these that you feel fortunate to be a Wisconsin MBA and especially a Nicholas Center student.

By Warren Wilson (Nicholas 2012)

It was a cool, clear, sunny September Saturday when a handful of MBA students, and a fearless MBA director transformed from mere academics into true warriors. The road was not a cake-walk by any means. After caravanning down to the Wisconsin-Illinois border, analyzing the brutal course, and amply stretching, our warrior dash began. We had to crawl across suspended tangled nets, conquer massive wooden barricades, muscle through a rubber jungle of recycled tires, scale slippery slopes, slide down fire poles, and leap through raging fires. The final conquest before the finish line required that we sludge through a long mud pit without gouging ourselves on the barbed-wire overhead.

After the race, the only method of tidying up a bit was to literally get hosed down by the local fire department (cold and abrasive to say the least). There was no better way to wrap up the event than by winding down, having some drinks, eating giant turkey legs, listening to live music, and chuckling at the many unique costumes on fellow warriors. It was a great experience for fellow MBA friends to get out of the classroom, build some camaraderie, and challenge themselves in a non-conventional way. And yes, I would do it again.

By Brian Meyer (Nicholas 2013)

On Friday, September 16th, an excited group of CFIB and Risk Management students traveled to Racine, WI to visit the corporate headquarters of SC Johnson (SCJ), a global leader in a wide range of consumer product categories including elite brands such as Ziploc, Windex, and Glade to name a few. In our visit, we met with Jaime Joynt, Mark Eckhardt, Mark Dahms, Aaron Holt, and Linsey Lauritzen, each of whom provided us with valuable perspective and demonstrated the kind of values one would associate with "a family company."

We first heard from Mark Eckhardt, who now serves as Senior VP & CFO for SCJ. Mark has been with the company for an impressive 22 years and is a true testament to the long-term, value-oriented approach the company is known for.

We next heard from Wisconsin alum Jaime Joynt, who was also kind of enough to coordinate the day's events. Jaime took the group through an entertaining review of the company's unique history, culture (including an admirable dedication to the global community), and award-winning brands. Jaime also discussed the company's recruiting process and the core values and abilities it seeks in potential employees.

We next heard from Mark Dahms, who has been with SCJ for an impressive 15 years. Mark walked through an intriguing and detailed account of a strategic challenge, he and his colleagues confronted only shortly after entering his current role. Hearing Mark discuss his thought process relative to this significant strategic issue was extremely valuable and demonstrative of the challenges we can expect (and solutions we can provide) in the next stage of our evolving careers.

Sporting a red Badgers t-shirt, Aaron Holt next provided the group with a colorful depiction of his tenure with SCJ, highlighting the various, interesting roles he has filled all over the globe throughout his career. Aaron creatively incorporated a number of props into his discussion, including a cow bell from Switzerland among other artifacts. As a result of this discussion, the group left Racine with valuable perspective relative to potential career paths at SCJ.

Last but not least, 2011 Nicholas Center alum Lauren Lauritzen discussed in detail her experience at SCJ as both an intern and as a full-time employee. Indeed, Lauren has been given the opportunity to work on value-adding projects from the get-go, an encouraging sign for the current CFIB/Risk Management crowd looking to make an immediate impact wherever the next stop may be.

In sum, the collection of speakers was extremely helpful and informative, and certainly left a positive impression of SCJ. I know I speak on behalf of the group in saying we greatly appreciate the time Jaime, Mark, Mark, Aaron, and Lauren spent with us, and look forward to interacting with SCJ going forward. Thank you.

By Sean Gilmore (Nicholas 2013)

September 23, 2011

The Nicholas Center CFIB Class of 2013 welcomed Ryan Douglas and Sean Klett from Ecolab (NYSE: ECL) to for our Current Topics class. Both Ryan and Sean are University of Wisconsin Alum.

Ecolab is a global leader in cleaning, sanitizing, food safety and infection prevention products and services. Ecolab has sales of $6 billion employing more than 26,000 associates around the world. Ryan provided an overview of Ecolab's goal of making the world cleaner, safer and healthier. Ecolab works with a variety of customers, including: restaurants, supermarkets, food and beverage manufacturers, hospitals, hotels and other businesses to help keep their operations clean, safe, and performing well.

Ryan discussed the continued growth of Ecolab and that the firm continues to seek opportunities to expand. One such opportunity was the recent merger with Nalco. Nalco is a global leader in water and energy services. The merger is complimentary and expands Ecolab's market opportunity to approximately $100 billion. Ryan mentioned mergers like the one with Nalco are all part of Ecolab's goal of not only thinking about the present needs but where they can be in the future.

Sean walked us through the pest elimination segment of Ecolab. The discussion was very eye opening in regards to the variety of contamination issues businesses face and how expensive it can be for example termites cause $750 million in damage every year.

Sean additionally reviewed some of the acquisition opportunities that he has worked on with Ecolab in the United Kingdom and France. Sean emphasized the importance of patience and being open minded when it comes working in different parts of the world. Every country has a different business model and therefore, the problems that arise and how objectives are met vary dramatically. One of the most important lessons Sean stressed to us was when working in other countries we need to have a natural curiosity for learning about the world and culture, even if there are meetings all day we have to find time to get out and explore the new city.

After attending the Current Topics class we are all much more aware of the expenses associated with contamination problems whether insects or bacteria, and that it is imperative to have firms like Ecolab to help the world become cleaner, safer and healthier for everyone. We are all very excited about pursuing careers in an increasingly global working environment and hope to have the opportunity to return as alumni to share our experiences with future Nicholas Center classes.

Sean Klett - Ryan Douglas - Megan Johnson (Ecolab summer intern)