The Alexander Bodini Foundation Competition, a cornerstone of Columbia Business School's Real Estate Private Equity course, marked its 25th anniversary on campus. This highly anticipated event challenges students to apply their classroom knowledge to real-world scenarios with guidance from some of the industry's top firms. This year's sponsors – Noble Investment Group, AvalonBay, LeFrak, and Cooper Square – brought a diverse set of challenges for the competing teams to tackle.
Competition Highlights
Teams immersed themselves in sponsor-provided projects, conducting extensive research, financial modeling, and strategic analysis. The culmination was the presentation round where the top four teams faced a panel of distinguished real estate alumni:
- Roger Fortune '21, The Stahl Organization
- Erik Horvat '04, The Olayan Group
- Rob Stern '88, Castle Hill Investors
2024 Winners
First Place
The team formed by Ali Mac Jinks, Brendan Keen, Colin Ahrens, and Landon Lichtenstein delivered a winning acquisition strategy for Noble Investment Group, focusing on a portfolio of 14 hotels. Their analysis demonstrated market savvy and a keen eye for value-add opportunities.
Second Place
Team formed by Ned Yale, Farheen Jooma, Jay Robinson, and Connor Corcoran bolstered AvalonBay's expansion plans with a data-driven recommendation for a new target market, showcasing comprehensive demographic and economic research.
Third Place
Team formed by Gabriel Wong, Justin Johnson, Megan Murphy, and John Reid tackled Battery Park City's complex land ownership structure for LeFrak, proposing innovative solutions to help NYC address its budget gap, while factoring in the needs of the state.
Fourth Place
Team formed by Ruby Wang, Mac McCann, Robert Leeds, and Renee Jiang crafted an acquisitions and investment strategy focused on manufactured housing communities for Cooper Square. Their analysis outlined value drivers, deal profiles, financing options, and potential monetization strategies.
A Legacy of Excellence
The Columbia Business School community extends its deepest gratitude to Ambassador Daniele D. Bodini '72. His generous support through the Alexander Bodini Foundation makes this competition a highlight of the MBA Real Estate Program and The Paul Milstein Center for Real Estate. The competition provides students with invaluable experience and serves as a testament to the program's commitment to real-world learning.
Sebastian Ore '24 is a second year student at Columbia Business School, where he is a VP of the Real Estate Association. Prior to business school, Sebastian was an Associate at Sura Investment Management focused on Real Estate Acquisitions across all asset classes in Latin America. He also completed a summer internship at Trammell Crow Company in Houston where he focused on industrial development. Sebastian is originally from Lima, Peru.