Rising College and Wharton senior Dylan Adelman received one of the highest honors in the investing world earlier this May when he was awarded the grand prize in the 2017 Sohn Idea Contest, a stock pitch competition.
Adelman, who beat out 400-600 other candidates in the contest, will present his idea at the 2017 Sohn Conference, which is the largest professional investing conference in the United States.
Other presenters include hedge fund manager David Einhorn and 1992 Engineering and Wharton graduate Larry Robbins, the donor of the renovations to the Jerome Fisher Program in Management and Technology office.
Adelman’s pitch that won him the contest involved the e-commerce corporation eBay.
He argued that eBay is currently undervalued. Adelman said that by 2020, when the current trade agreement between eBay and PayPal expires, eBay will process its own payments, leading to “several billion dollars of growth for eBay.”
“There is a relationship between eBay and PayPal that is not properly understood by investors in the marketplace,” Adelman added.
During Adelman’s final presentation, where he spoke to an audience of 3,000, Adelman concluded that eBay stock is worth 46 percent more than it currently trades at.
Adelman submitted the presentation while studying abroad in Cuba. To prepare for the final round of competition, Adelman left his study abroad program a few weeks early.
During the conference, David Einhorn told the audience that he was so impressed with the idea that he wanted to invest in the idea as soon as he saw it, Seeking Alpha reported.
Since the conference, Adelman has been featured on CNBC to debate his position on PayPal with former hedge fund manager Jim Cramer.
Rising Wharton sophomore Alex Agus attended the conference. He described Adelman’s presentation as “well-researched, unique and understandable.”
Most of the conference attendees were professional investors in their 30s or 40s and were surprised to hear that Adelman was only 20 years old.
Adelman said that the conference showed him the “importance of blind review and not letting reputations dictate just how good the idea is.”
“It was cool to see that ... [my idea] could be considered as good if not better than [the ideas of professional investors] when submitted through a blind-process,” Adelman said.
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