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by Sharon Shinn have analyzed the market performance of Conrad Industries, part of the Gulf Coast marine transportation industry, and Petroleum Helicopters, which flies personnel and equipment to offshore oil platforms. Glamorous? Maybe not. Educational? Absolutely. Students in the Burkenroad program must be accounting f it's true that on-the-job experience is the best way to learn, then a group of students from Tulane University is getting an excellent education. These students, enrolled at the university's A.B. Freeman School of Business, are part of a nine-year-old program called Burkenroad Reports that allows students to act as investment analysts for a handful of small regional companies. Some of the students in the program have studied Iberiabank and its assets and liabilities. Others off-shore rigs, visited steel mills, and gone through chicken processing plants. When we're at Sanderson Farms, the CFO takes us out to lunch afterward and makes us eat chicken." In addition to interviewing top executives, students talk to suppliers, customers, and trade associations to try to assess what's likely to happen in that industry. Eventually, they compile their extensive reports, each about 24 to 30 pages, and each including a buy or sell recommendation. Because students are dealing with actual companies in real or finance majors who have already taken a number of courses in their core disciplines. The fall class includes sen- ior-level undergraduates and some second-year MBA stu- dents; the spring semester features all first-year MBAs. Seventy students participate in each session. They're divided into teams of three or four and assigned to do the research time, they have to be braced for unexpected changes. One Burkenroad company, Callon Petroleum, had a stock price of $4 a share in January when students first started working on their report. Late in the semester, J.P. Morgan presented a research report on the company, and its stock jumped to $8 a share. "The students said, 'But we wrote the report based on $4! This isn't fair!'" Ricchiuti says. "Yeah, but this is live stuff. It can be a little harrowing for them because of that." Once the student reports are completed, Ricchiuti com- piles a compendium publication that includes one-page briefs on all 42 companies. In addition, the information is posted on the Web at burkenroad.org. About 12,000 Iberiabank Corporation, from market performance to peer institutions to potential risks. wondering whether or not to invest in it, they would recommend that you buy. on one of the 42 companies in the Burkenroad portfolio. The students then have the entire semester to compile a comprehensive report on their company. "There are nine elements in the report, such as company background, peer comparisons, and the income statement. Each week a dif- ferent deliverable is due," says Peter Ricchiuti, founder and director of the program. "Each week, the pieces are graded and sent back for revisions. At the end I tell them, 'Don't panic. To finish it, all you need is a stapler.'" For the students, a key part of learning about the com- investors take a look at the finished Burkenroad reports, issued in December and in May of every year. The information also is disseminated at an annual invest- pany is making a trip to its headquarters. Firms in the Burkenroad program are all in the five-state regional area of Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, and Georgia—as Ricchiuti says, "anywhere we can get to by car or a cheap Southwest Airlines flight." During the company visit, the students tour the operations and meet with CEOs and CFOs to get a better understanding of how the company functions. "We have the best field trips in the free world," says Ricchiuti. "We've taken helicopters to ment conference that is held in New Orleans and is open to the public. The top managers of all the featured investment companies make appearances at the conference and give short presentations to the 700 to 800 investors in the audi- ence. "All kinds of folks attend, from individual investors to people who work in the investment industry to alums who come back for the conference. We've got local people walk- ing around in fuzzy slippers and people from San Francisco investing $20 million," says Ricchiuti. From the Beginning Ricchiuti began the Burkenroad Reports program in 1993 with a small grant and a lot of ambition. He had been teach- ing part-time at Tulane while acting as the investment offi- cer for the state of Louisiana. "Constituents would call and ask where they could find investment research on this or BizEd SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2002 43