At the Ben Graham Centre’s 2026 International MBA Stock Picking Competition, three student finalist teams analyzed a company in the recreational boating industry. After working through the same set of financials, the same cyclical slump, and broadly the same set of dealer conversations, the three teams landed in three different places. Two said buy. One said pass. The disagreement wasn’t about the facts. It was about how much credit you’re willing to give to a normalization story that hasn’t actually started yet.
2026 International MBA Stock Picking Competition Winners
The judging panel, chaired by Kim Shannon, announced the results at the Ben Graham Centre’s 2026 Value Investing Conference.
1st Place: Columbia Business School
Team members: Benjamin Flaum, Ian Lee, Tarun Sharma
2nd Place: Ivey Business School
Team members: Chitanya Gandhi, Joseph Rooney
3rd Place: Barna Management School
Team members: Yachelbys Vicente, Daniel Lora, Roman Frias
Notably, the winning Columbia team was the more conservative of the two buy calls, insisting on a $27 entry price even though their earnings power value suggested $36.53. Barna, which made the most aggressive outright buy, finished third. Ivey, the only team to pass, finished second, a reminder that in a stock-picking competition judged on analysis, conviction isn’t the same as being right.
The industry context everyone agreed on
Before getting to the arguments, some background.
Recreational boating is a discretionary, interest-rate-sensitive industry that got hit when rates rose. Industry unit sales have roughly halved from their pandemic peak, falling from around 300,000 to about 140,000. The U.S. powerboat market is roughly $15.5 billion, growing at around 5% through 2031. Customers either pay cash (rare) or finance, and dealers finance their inventory through floor plans, so the whole chain is exposed to interest rates twice over. Every team noted the same macro backdrop: rates depressing demand, inventories sitting above pre-pandemic levels, margins compressed across the industry.
Segment structure and the dealer moat
All three teams spent time on how the industry is actually structured.
The market splits cleanly into three segments. Water sports boats are a small, premium niche where technology, brand, and a strong dealer network matter more than price. Luxury recreational boats are mid-sized, highly cyclical, and driven by features rather than performance. Saltwater fishing is the biggest of the three and the most commoditized, with buyers focused on function and price. They’re all discretionary, but otherwise they behave very differently.
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