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Raleigh: from Taiwan to North Carolina, Luca Tourbier (MSc FMI) sharpens his profile in international finance
A student on SKEMA Business School’s MSc Financial Markets & Investments (FMI) programme on the Raleigh campus, Luca Tourbier secured third place with his team — Iannis Warlop, Baptiste Levasseur and Camille Guittat — in the local selection round of the CFA Research Challenge organised by CFA Society North Carolina in Charlotte. Competing against several American universities, the result reflects months of intensive work analysing United Therapeutics in an exercise closely aligned with professional equity research standards.
Organised internationally by the CFA Institute, the competition places students in real-life financial analyst conditions. The aim is to produce an investment recommendation on a listed company, defend an investment thesis before a panel of professionals, then answer a series of technical questions. “This is not a standard academic presentation. You need to build a real narrative, defend every assumption, speak for ten minutes in English without interruption, then handle ten minutes of questioning,” says Luca, who is studying on the Raleigh campus.
In North Carolina, the SKEMA team was assigned United Therapeutics, a US biotechnology group specialising in treatments for rare pulmonary diseases — a company considered difficult to assess because of the limited level of publicly available information.
Several hundred hours of preparation
Before the final presentation, the students first produced a ten-page equity research report, limited in length but demanding in analytical depth. “For the report alone, we spent between 200 and 300 hours working on it,” Luca explains. Started in the autumn, the project continued until January for the report submission, before qualification for the local final was announced in February. The team then had to prepare an oral defence in a tightly defined format.
A path built across four countries
Beyond the competition, Luca Tourbier’s journey reflects an unusual academic path. Originally from Marseille, he discovered the French grande école system relatively late after completing a DUT diploma, before joining a bridge preparatory course and then SKEMA’s Master in Management (PGE) on the Sophia Antipolis campus. He then completed a gap year, including an internship at BNP Paribas in Luxembourg as a financial analyst, followed by an M&A experience in Nantes, before spending a semester at National Chengchi University in Taipei. Since September 2025, he has continued his studies in the United States within the MSc FMI.
Aiming for investment banking
For Luca, this type of competition is also a way to position himself in an environment where French business schools remain less visible. “When you want to work in the United States, you need to prove your value against local universities. It is a strong way to build credibility with recruiters there,” says the finance student.
His objective is clear: to move into investment banking or M&A on the American market. “I have already started the process to obtain the OPT visa, which allows international graduates to work in the United States for one year after completing their studies. At the same time, I am preparing a dissertation on transatlantic mergers and acquisitions between France and the United States, with a focus on cultural differences in cross-border transactions.”
* CFA: Chartered Financial Analyst, the leading international certification in financial analysis and investment, awarded by the CFA Institute.
Find out more about the MSc Financial Markets & Investments
