The finals of Ace Manager, BNP Paribass first virtual game, will take place in Paris on Monday 20 April 2009 at the banks headquarters. The five teams of finalists include students of 8 nationalities.
After the students have made their presentations, Michel Pbereau, Chairman of BNP Paribas, and Richard Descoings, Director of Sciences Po Paris, will preside over the prize-giving ceremony at 6.45 pm in the Orangerie.
During the day, the five teams of finalists, each made up of 4 undergraduates, will complete one last task in front of a jury comprising experts from the BNP Paribas Group and Patrick Molle, Director of EM Lyon Business School.
The students will tackle three mini cases following on from the online case studies they worked on between 4 February and 18 March. For the Retail Bank, the players will have to manage the Universe City bank (the virtual world in which Ace Manager takes place).
They will be asked to choose a commercial strategy and targeted products for a particular type of customer, and create a customer welcoming programme. On the Asset Management & Services front, the students will advise the tennis player they supported during the first stage of the game on property and wealth management issues. And lastly, for the Corporate and Investment Banking challenge, the students will be asked to complete the takeover of the racket manufacturing company they set their sights on during the on-line game stage and finalise development plans for the company.
Eight nationalities are represented among the finalists:
– Che bei che semo (score 170,933 points) comprises three Italian students and one American student. They are all studying at the Bocconi business school.
– The Elite International (168,439 points) includes two Spanish students (ICADE Madrid), one American (University of Pennsylvania) and one Chinese student (National University of Singapore).
– Ace Synergy (166,866 points) comprises one Italian student (Politecnico, Turin), one student from the United Arab Emirates (Zayed University), one Russian (St Petersburg State University) and one French student (ENSMM of Besanon)
-Hinterland (164,338 points) is made up of four German students from WHU University, Koblenz.
– DIMS (163,611 points) has four Russian students from Moscows Finance Academy.
The finalists will receive a prize, with 10,000 going to the winning team, 2,600 to the runners-up and a 3rd prize of 1,600. Tickets to tennis tournaments will be given to all the finalists.
Ace Manager was designed in consultation with BNP Paribas bankers to give students concrete experience of the groups three activities: Retail Banking, Asset Management & Services and Corporate and Investment Banking.
Ace Manager is central to the Groups strategy for raising its profile and enhancing its appeal among students outside France with the aim of becoming one of the global employer brands that ranks among the most attractive.
To raise awareness of the group and reinforce its attractiveness to graduates from the worlds leading universities and business schools, BNP Paribas has capitalised on its association with the tennis world through 36 years of sponsorship and on its powerful capacity to recruit and offer exciting career prospects.
L.D.