Real estate studies at KTH shine through in international competition
Real estate studies at KTH earned yet more international recognition last month when students here took second place in a competition against nine U.S. universities.
Representing the only non-American university invited to compete in the 6th Annual ICSC & Cornell International Retail Real Estate Case Competition, Miles Gullström-Hughes, Gabriel Bonnevier, Axel Jersenius and Alex Andersson collected the second-place purse of $3,000. Cornell University won first place and Indiana University took third place.
The challenge, which involves actual retail real estate cases, is jointly hosted by the International Council of Shopping Centers and the Center for Real Estate and Finance at the Cornell SC Johnson College of Business.
Gullström-Hughes says that the competition was fierce, involving some leading universities. “A majority of the leading faculties in the field are invited and the standard of performance has become very high over the years,” he says.
Proposal for Spanish shopping centre
While the KTH team competed on even footing with its American competitors in terms of analyzing a foreign real estate asset—the case involved a shopping centre in Spain—the Swedes were the only group faced with added challenge of presenting their analysis in a second language.
The competition allowed one week for analysis, but Gullström-Hughes credits the KTH showing to preparation. KTH finished as a finalist in early 2021 competitions hosted in Canada: placing fourth at Ryerson University in Toronto (winning a $2,000 bonus for most creative proposal), and second at Guelph University, where they took home $7,500.
Complement to studies
“This result was made possible by a whole season of hard work and accumulated skill sets from great finishes in other competitions, KTH lectures, our sponsors in Stockholm, and ultimately KTH Real Estate Club who pushes hard to complement the syllabus at KTH with competition-based learning and industry-level pressure.”
Bonnevier is in the BSc programme in Property Development and Agency (taught in Swedish), and Gullström-Hughes, Jersenius and Andersson are in Real Estate & Finance (taught in Swedish).
Gullström-Hughes says the KTH team will compete in another competition at Cornell, one which they have qualified for the last few years. The engagements have led to a dialogue with the Cornell faculty, in any case, he says. “That, and thriving real estate programmes at KTH, have made an impression that I believe resulted in the invitation to this competition.”
David Callahan