Sámuel Varga: Hungarian student aspires to become leader in world of corporate finance 

Sámuel Varga aspires to become a leader in the world of corporate finance using the knowledge he obtained and skills he refined at the University of Maine. 

When he first traveled from Erd, Hungary, to Maine as a high school exchange student in 2013, Varga was captivated by the small business culture in the state, he says. Varga planned to open his own small business when he enrolled at UMaine, but studying management and finance at the Maine Business School inspired his new goal of becoming an executive at a financial services firm.  

“It utilizes my two main strengths, emotional intelligence and quantitative capabilities,” he says. 

For his senior thesis, Varga focused on indicators that predict underpricing in initial public offerings (IPOs). Underpricing occurs when firms first sell shares of ownership through stocks, or make an IPO, at a lower than expected price to “display abnormally high short-term returns on average,” he says.  

Varga chose his thesis topic after completing a previous assignment in which he wrote about a failed IPO. Learning how that IPO faltered inspired his future work. 

“As a result, I wanted to know if IPO performance, failures or major successes, can be forecasted using certain predictors,” Varga says. “I seek to establish new predictors of IPO underpricing to help entrepreneurs, underwriters, and investors of all sizes make better financial decisions,” Varga says.

At UMaine, Varga also participated in several campus groups and activities. He worked as a resident assistant for three years, two of which he served as a lead resident assistant; was the human resources manager for the UMaine Student Portfolio Investment Fund (SPIFFY), worked as a student ambassador and research assistant for the Maine Business School, and participated in competition teams with fellow Business School students that won the CFA Institute Research Challenge and International Collegiate Business Strategy Competition. 

“I love that UMaine feels like a town. It is an ecosystem of people doing vastly different things (in studies and activities), and yet people develop friendships intra- and inter-discipline that stay with them beyond college,” Varga says.

Varga, who earned his degree in May, plans to work as a hedge fund accountant with Stone Coast Fund Services, Portland.

“I love the culture of my own department, the Maine Business School. The relationships I was able to develop with the faculty and the administrative staff are treasures, and I hope to maintain many of them during my career in the financial services industry,” he says. “I appreciated the genuine care these individuals displayed toward my own personal and professional success.”

Contact: Marcus Wolf, marcus.wolf@maine.edu