APPENDIX 1: RESEARCH PAPER GUIDELINES

2025 Budding Value Investor Award

The 2025 Budding Value Investor Award consists of two stages:

[1] Preliminary Stage

The Preliminary Stage requires the Participants to submit a Research Paper that consists of two parts:

Part 1

Please submit Part 1 of your Research Paper on the following topic:
“The investing style of value investing was born in 1934 by Benjamin Graham through his book, Security Analysis, during the depths of the 1929 Great Depression. With the ongoing threats of a global trade war and AI, how would you apply value investing in such an environment?” Part 1 of your Research Paper shall not exceed 1,500 words, excluding charts, tables, references and appendices.

Part 2

In relation to the above, choose a company listed on any stock exchanges around the world that you would recommend a Buy or Sell from a value investing point of view.
Part 2 of your Research Paper shall not exceed 5,000 words, excluding charts, tables, references and appendices.

[2] Final Stage

The Final Stage is a Presentation of Part 2 of Participants’ Research Paper. Finalists will be invited to present their research to a panel of prominent judges. The Final Stage Presentation will be held physically in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia on 15 November 2025. More detailed information and procedures will be disclosed to the Finalists in due course.

Research Paper Guidelines

The Research Paper must:

1. Not exceed 1,500 words for Part 1 and 5,000 words for Part 2, excluding charts, tables, references and appendices;
2. Be written in clear, concise and easy-to-understand English, with no serious grammatical and/or vocabulary errors;
3. Not be plagiarised from any source;
4. Be the Participants’ original work. Any sourced information should be properly cited using generally accepted citation systems (refer to examples in the Rule 1.2);
5. be in the following format:
   • Text must be Arial font size 12
   • Single line spacing with justified text
6. A4 size with 1.5cm margins on the left and right sides of the page employ consistent terminology, for example, maintain the use of “RM1 mln” instead of subsequently using “RM1 million”;
7. include the following details of Participants:
   • Full name as per identification card or passport
   • Identification number or passport number
   • University
   • Student ID
   • Faculty, programme and major(s)
   • Year of study
   • Mobile phone number
   • Email address
   • Residential address

Part 2 of the Research Paper must include:

1. Company information as below:
   • Full Company Name
   • Stock Name
   • Stock Code
   • Stock Market
   • Closing share price on the last market day before submission
2. Company Background
3. Business Model
4. Industry Analysis
5. Financial Analysis
6. Valuation
7. Recommendation and Reasons
8. Appendices as below:
   • All three (3) Financial Statements (Income Statement, Balance Sheet, and Cash Flow Statement) over 10 years or since inception, whichever is longer.
   • Forecasts/projections with computations
   • Justification for the valuation method used
   • Calculations of key ratios such as liquidity ratios, debt ratios, profitability ratio, DuPont analysis, cash-conversion cycle days and others
   • Assumptions
   • All sources of numerical data

Submission of the Research Paper

Part 1 and Part 2 of the Research Paper must:

1. be in ONE SINGLE document;
2. be submitted in BOTH Microsoft Word and PDF versions via email to bvia@icapital.biz with the title “2025 BVIA_Research Paper Submission_[TEAM NAME]”;
3. be submitted by Sunday, 23 Aug 2025, 11.59 PM Malaysia time (GMT+8)