A team of students from the UVA Credit & Restructuring (CRX) club earned first place at the American Bankruptcy Institute (ABI) Corporate Restructuring Competition held on Nov. 14, 2025, at NYU Stern. UVA’s winning team of Max Rudikoff (McIntire ’26), Alexandra Worms (McIntire ’27), Aadil Anand (A&S ’27), and Emanuel Rouvelas (A&S ’27) bested 10 other undergraduate and MBA teams from top business schools to take home the Bettina M. Whyte Trophy and a cash prize of $7,000.
A second UVA team composed of Maddie Daigle (McIntire ’27), Matt Mangiacapre (McIntire ’27), Rodrigo Gamero (Darden ’27), and Viswa Subramanian (A&S ’27) placed fourth.
McIntire Professor David C. Smith, who serves as an informal adviser to CRX, was “thrilled” about sending a pair of UVA teams to New York to be part of the competition.
“The fact that one of our teams won the competition outright and the other placed fourth is fantastic news. I am really proud of the students,” he says. “Our performance at the competition speaks to the environment we’ve created here for developing UVA students for careers in credit, restructuring, and distressed investing, including through the student-run CRX club. Winning this year’s competition serves as external validation that we are one of the top programs in the country for educating students in credit and restructuring.”
Students had one week to solve a complex case and then present their proposed solutions at NYU Stern to judges representing industry stakeholders. After the teams presented their restructuring plans to professionals acting as the board of directors and creditors during the first two rounds of the three-round competition, the winning UVA students joined two other top-scoring teams to participate in the final round, which simulated a bankruptcy court confirmation hearing.
“Qualifying for the last round led to the most challenging judgment calls, as we had only 30 minutes to produce a final deck for what was a mock confirmation of the plan of reorganization in court,” says Rudikoff.
“We were incredibly excited and grateful for the opportunity to represent UVA against both undergraduate and MBA teams,” says Worms. “Competing against MBA students with years of professional experience was daunting, but we focused on mastering the details of the case and understanding the key drivers of the business. I believe this combination of case fluency and industry-specific reasoning set us apart. Additionally, competing as an all-undergraduate team was a strength; the judges remarked on our analysis despite our relative age and experience.”
“I think our win was a real testament to the restructuring community that has been built at UVA,” says Rudikoff. “Professor Smith’s fourth-year elective Valuation and Restructuring has created incredible spillover effects with CRX in terms of the alumni network,” he insists, detailing how the experiences in his McIntire coursework, student org-related activities, and participation in this competition have solidified his decision to pursue a career in distressed debt and restructuring.
McIntire Professor Mike Gallmeyer notes that the excellence of the student participants reflects the impact of the Commerce School’s curriculum innovation in new areas. “This win reinforces all we are trying to do at McIntire to advance educational initiatives around alternative investing,” he says. “I couldn’t be prouder of our students for representing us with such a distinction, as well as my colleague David Smith for leading our credit and restructuring endeavors.”
“The students very much appreciate the generosity of the McIntire Center for Investors and Financial Markets (CIFM) and the support of UVA alumni Kevin (McIntire ’10) and Kelsey Mahony (A&S ’10),” adds Smith, sharing that the CIFM and Mahonys covered the teams’ travel costs to New York as well as the submission fee to participate in the competition
About the American Bankruptcy Institute
ABI is the largest multidisciplinary, nonpartisan organization dedicated to research and education on matters related to insolvency. ABI was founded in 1982 to provide Congress and the public with unbiased analysis of bankruptcy issues. The ABI membership includes nearly 10,000 attorneys, accountants, bankers, judges, professors, lenders, turnaround specialists, and other bankruptcy professionals, providing a forum for the exchange of ideas and information. For additional information on ABI, visit www.abiworld.org.
