Pre-Wall Street Students Win 2024 LLR Case Competition

Mary Evelyn Barrett, Grace Fiorella, Landon Ellis and Nick Clark, Pre‐Wall Street Career Track members from the Class of 2026, recently competed in and won a private equity case competition hosted by LLR Partners. The virtual competition involved real-life exposure to the investment process by having participating teams pitch a prospective take-private company and evaluate a deal for a legitimate LLR portfolio company.

With a total of 30 teams in the first round of the competition, the group chose to pitch Cellebrite, a digital intelligence company, where a two-page memo of both qualitative and statistical figures was presented to LLR Partners for further consideration. Nearly two weeks later, they were invited to participate in the second round against four other teams, where they created a 15-slide pitch deck for a proposed purchase of workspace management software company Appspace. There, they also built a full financial model and presented their calculations and analysis to a panel of LLR professionals and the CEO of Appspace.

“We had so much fun; it was a great learning experience,” said Barrett. “One thing that surprised me was how invested the whole team was in both Cellebrite and Appspace by the end of all the research we did. It was so cool to dive deep into a company I would not have known much about otherwise.”

Professor Martin Malloy, Faculty Director of the Wall Street Prep Track Program, initially notified the students about the LLR Private Equity Case Competition. Once the competition was underway, Professor Malloy invited Mark Johnson, Teaching Professor and Fellow in Investments and Portfolio Management, to provide feedback on their valuation model and pitch deck.

“The team of students shared everything with Professor Malloy and I, we reviewed it, and the students gave us a mock pitch presentation,” said Johnson. “I particularly focused on the valuation and technical aspects of their research given that I teach in our Equity Investments and Tactical Asset Allocation and Portfolio Management courses in the undergraduate and MBA programs, as well as lead our student managed fund of approximately $750,000.”

The Pre‐Wall Street Career Track provides early and focused professional preparation for qualified Wake Forest students intending to pursue careers in Investment Banking, Asset Management, Sales & Trading, and Private Equity on a global basis. The track includes targeted coursework, mentoring/coaching, experiential learning, skills/tool training, and networking to help students compete and secure high‐value internships and job offers in the above sectors.

“We had lots of help from Professors Malloy and Johnson, as well as help from an assigned mentor at LLR,” said Barrett. “I think my main takeaway is how much work and effort goes into one pitch.”

LLR Partners is a Philadelphia-based private equity firm with more than $6 billion of committed capital across seven funds. As part of the competition, final round teams gained early access to the interview process for LLR’s Summer 2025 Internship Program, as well as a $4,000 cash prize for the winning team.