The ICMA Centre Trading Team, George Georgakakis,Craig Kirby, Nick Craze and Nikolaos Prepalas with Dr Michael Smith, Dealing Room Director

The ICMA Centre at the University of Reading has won first-prize in the prestigious 3rd annual Rotman International Trading competition held at the University of Toronto's Rotman School of Management. The team of 4 traders beat 37 other teams from a veritable ?Who's Who? of the best finance schools in the world including M.I.T (Sloan School of Management), Carnegie Mellon University (Tepper School of Business) and Duke University (Fuqua School of Business).

The competition involved trading four separate trading cases which ranged from simple open outcry futures trading to a complex quantitative analysis case which utilises simulated trading software. The competition was at the highest level and by all accounts very intense, but once again the ICMA Centre produced a winning team having come 3rd in 2004 and 2nd in 2005.

This is a major achievement and reflects the success of our applied approach to teaching finance? said Dr Michael Smith, Dealing Room Director at the ICMA Centre. He added, ?the Centre is relatively new compared to some of the more established U.S schools, but our hands-on approach to teaching has produced students of the highest quality who are, in terms of their practical usefulness to an investment bank, far ahead of those who have had a more traditional theoretical finance education?.

John Board, Director of the ICMA Centre commented ?This win is especially welcome in light of the recent £5m donation to The University of Reading from The International Capital Market Association (ICMA) to fund further development of the ICMA Centre. This development will include a new state-of-the-art 50 station dealing room which will further enhance the ICMA Centre's practical edge in finance education? .

Gordon Marshall, Vice-Chancellor of Reading University added ?The continuing commitment of the International Capital Market Association to the University of Reading since it helped found Europe's first simulated trading room at Reading in 1994, highlights the University of Reading's ability to produce some of the best finance graduates in Europe as demonstrated by this excellent win.?

Geert van der Heyden, Chairman of ICMA's Education Committee said: ?The value of ICMA's sustained investment in finance education through the ICMA centre, focusing particularly on the practical aspects of trading, has been amply demonstrated by the success of the ICMA Centre team in this prestigious global trading competition?.