Top UI business students finding work at Wall Street investment firms

The New York Times recently reported that investment banks and Wall Street firms are again hiring young business school graduates as the financial services industry slowly comes back to life.

That’s not a surprise to Brian Richman, director of the Hawkinson Institute of Business Finance in the University of Iowa’s Tippie College of Business.

“All 19 of our seniors this year have accepted employment offers or been admitted to graduate school for next year,” said Richman. Among the companies that have hired the Hawkinson program graduates are such major Wall Street firms as Goldman Sachs, Credit Suisse, UBS and Bank of America Merrill Lynch.

The Hawkinson graduates will also work at such firms as Houlihan Lokey, DRW Trading Group, William Blair & Co., BMO Capital Markets and Lazard Middle Market. Richman said they will hold jobs in investment banking, capital markets, sales and trading and research.

Richman said this year marks the first time that Goldman Sachs, one of Wall Street’s “bulge bracket” firms, recruited on campus at Iowa.

U of I Students Are Being Recognized

“That’s a significant recognition of the quality and quantity of students we’re graduating,” said Richman. “But more importantly, it expands the opportunities to a broader range of Iowa students.” For the first time, he said a Tippie sophomore would be participating in a spring internship program at Goldman.

Now in its 10th year, the Hawkinson Institute of Business Finance takes some of the Tippie College’s top undergraduate students and rigorously prepares them for careers in investment banking and sales and trading as Hawkinson Scholars. The program accepts students after a competitive application process, and those who are accepted have an average GPA of 3.8.

This is the second year in a row that the Hawkinson Scholars have had such an enviable placement rate. Last year, all 17 graduates from the Class of ‘09 had jobs upon graduation, despite the fact that the financial services industry had been riddled by the recession.

“The hiring landscape was certainly better this year,” said Richman, a former investment banker himself. “But in good times or bad, the key to our students’ success continues to be their focus, diligence and preparation — through their coursework and their Hawkinson activities. It’s fantastic to see Iowa students perform so well in a venue that historically has been the purview of Ivy League graduates.”

STORY SOURCE: University of Iowa News Service, 300 Plaza Centre One, Iowa City, Iowa 52242-2500.
MEDIA CONTACT: Brian Richman, director, Hawkinson Institute of Business Finance, 319-335-0853, brian-richman@uiowa.edu; Tom Snee, 319-384-0010 (office), 319-541-8434 (cell), tom-snee@uiowa.edu

A pooch kick from where Nate Kaeding booted his way into Hawkeye history books, the former West High and University of Iowa standout and current NFL place-kicker plans to open a new restaurant.

The restaurant hasn’t been named yet, but the plan is for a morning coffee shop, full-service lunch and dinner menus and Sunday brunch, Kaeding said. He and his partners hope to open by early June, Kaeding said.

“Being an Iowa City guy born and raised … I just had an interest to get involved. It was a fun side project for me,” Kaeding said.

Location To Be Former Taste On Melrose

The restaurant will take over the former space of Taste on Melrose, 1006 Melrose Ave., which closed on Feb. 14. The location is in a neighborhood setting just down the road from Kinnick Stadium and UI Hospitals and Clinics, which has 6,000 employees and hundreds of thousands of patient visits a year.

The menu is still being developed, Kaeding said. The meals will be fairly traditional, such as chicken sandwiches and pork tenderloins, but each dish will be made unique by featuring an Iowa ingredient. Prices will range from $9 to $15, he said.

“It will be Iowa ingredient-driven food, and it will be at a price point that will be very accessible,” Kaeding said.

The restaurant will also accommodate sports fans who want to grab a hot dog and burger and watch a game on television, Kaeding said. The plan calls for putting in a patio along the length of the building, Kaeding said.

Kaeding is partnering with Dan Ouverson, who co-owns the Mill Restaurant, and Kevin Perez, a local chef. The trio opened Short’s Burger and Shine, 18 S. Clinton St., in 2008.

Kaeding, who has played for the San Diego Chargers since he left UI 2004, still returns to the Iowa City area in the off-season. The restaurants serve as a good side project for life off the field, Kaeding said.

“Some day football is going to give up on me, so I will have to come up with something to come back to,” Kaeding said. “And, it is fun to be involved in a project that doesn’t have anything to with sports.”

via IC Press Citizen

Financial Times ranks Tippie MBA among world’s best

The Financial Times has again ranked the University of Iowa’s Tippie School of Management one of the best MBA programs in the world.

The London-based international finance and business daily’s 2010 survey ranked Tippie at 12th among public schools in the United States, 36th among all U.S. schools and 64th in the world. The program also ranked Tippie 39th globally for placement success.

The ranking, published in the paper’s Feb. 19 edition, is based on three main areas of data:  alumni salaries and career development; diversity and international reach of the business school and its MBA program; and the school’s research capabilities. This year, the paper ranked 156 business schools from around the world, including, for the first time, three in China.

For more information about the rankings, visit www.ft.com/mba.

University of Iowa News Release

UI details proposed $73M clinic

Facility would allow room for expanded UIHC clinics

AMES — University of Iowa Hospitals and Clinics officials can move forward on a $73 million outpatient clinic project in Coralville with the approval Thursday from the Iowa state Board of Regents.

A regent hospital oversight subcommittee Wednesday heard a fleshed-out vision of the project first introduced in the summer of 2008. Regents gave preliminary approval and the board will formally vote today.

The site and the new facility will provide convenience for patients, visibility for the hospital, decongestion for the main campus and much needed room for expansion of UIHC’s many clinics, UI Vice President for Medical Affairs Jean Robillard said.

“We are constrained presently. If we don’t do anything, we cannot really expand the cancer center, we cannot expand the heart and vascular center, and we cannot ex-pand any of our services,” Robillard said.

The project would be located along the north side of East Ninth Street in Coralville’s River Landing redevelopment district. The district includes the Marriott Hotel and Conference Center and some retail but is largely undeveloped or used for other purposes than the long-term vision.

This is good news because Coralville has a number of projects, such as a hotel, restaurant and other retail shops, which have been waiting for a green light on the UIHC project before moving forward and it allows the city to begin grading and preparing the land, Coralville City Administrator Kelly Hayworth said.

“It is great news for the Iowa River Landing,” Hayworth said. “This decision was really important. It really dictates how quickly this gets developed.”

Approval today will mean UI can sign an agreement with Coralville and a developer, said Ken Fisher, UI Health Care chief financial officer. UI will return to the regents in March to request permission to approve a final design and begin construction, Fisher said.

The proposal on Wednesday included a five-story 150,000 gross-square-foot building, including 30,000 gross-square-feet, one floor, which initially will remain a shell, according to a UIHC information packet.
Clinical operations are expected to move to Coralville in June 2012, according to the packet.

All or part of 17 services from UIHC will be moved to the new clinic, including general internal medicine, ophthalmology, otolaryngology, cardiology, dermatology and radiology, among others, according to the packet. UIHC estimates 300,000 annual clinic visits, according to the packet.

The cost includes $53 million for the facility and $20 million for furniture and equipment, according the packet. Coralville will be responsible for constructing and maintaining a new parking ramp, and UI would pay an estimated $1.55 million annually for parking, according to the packet.

One difference from the 2008 pitch is UI would own the land –1.2 acres — as opposed to leasing it, Fisher said. The original pitch also included a total of six facilities.

UIHC has the first right to buy land that becomes available on the south side of Ninth Street, Fisher said. UI officials attempted to purchase more land now, but it is privately owned and would have been an obstacle to moving forward, Fisher said. UIHC expects further expansion there or somewhere else, Fisher said.

Regent president pro tem Jack Evans said the project is exciting for Iowa.

“I think it is an exciting project for the state of Iowa. I think it will be an enormous addition to the delivery of medical services to the state of Iowa on a patient-friendly basis,” he said.

Brian Morelli • Iowa City Press-Citizen • February 4, 2010

Confused about the ongoing AIG controversy?

Don’t be any longer.

Professor Linus Wilson has put together this helpful chart showing exactly how the bailout went down, complete with which banks got how much.

Two things stand out: The Treasury’s overpayment for preferred stock was a crucial part of the bailout, and though Goldman Sachs is usually held up as the bad guy here, SocGen received $2.5 billion more.

Hope the Europeans appreciate your (the taxpayer) ponying up.