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THE BENCHMARQ
NEWS & TIPS FROM THE MARQUEE GROUP

The new year is shaping up to be our busiest ever and we have many exciting initiatives on the go. Stay tuned for updates in future editions of The BenchMarq.

We have included a couple articles in this edition of The BenchMarq about speed – how we can make our work in Excel go a little faster. The first article is part two in our series on reducing workbook bloat while our second article contains a great keyboard shortcut. I hope you enjoy them. We have also attached a profile on our new real estate development modeling course.

Quagmire Challenge

We love the feedback that we receive on our newsletter. Many of you have sent us great questions and ideas. Those ideas inspired us to introduce something new and fun in our newsletter – The Quagmire – a challenging Excel problem that you can try to solve. We have prizes for the three most creative solutions. See more below.

New Additions

We want to welcome two more colleagues to the Marquee family. Chantal Giurlanda is a DeGroote MBA who we had the pleasure of having as a Teaching Assistant several years ago. Now, after a stint with a major bank, she has joined us as our new Director of Marketing. To keep us organized, we also have the good fortune of adding Donna Rutherford to our team. I have known Donna for many years and she is one of the top Executive Assistants on Bay Street so we were thrilled when she agreed to join us.

We want to wish you all the best for a great year. If you know someone who might be interested in receiving Marquee news, they can click here to add themselves to our distribution list.

Ian Schnoor, Principal and Founder

Modeling Tips – Reducing File Bloat Part Two

This article is the second in a series that will help you put some of your Excel files on a diet and get them in tip-top shape.

In the first article of this series, we discussed the concept of Excel’s Used Range, how to find out how large the Used Range is in a particular worksheet, and to see how it affects the file size of each of the individual worksheets in an Excel file. You can find that article here.

In this article and others that will follow, we add to the first article and move beyond the size of a worksheet to features of Excel that, through either file longevity, external links, or compatibility issues, can cause a file to increase in size and decrease in speed.

Click here to read more

Keyboard Shortcut – I Miss the Right "Click"

Leaving the mouse behind for speed, accuracy and efficiency is one of our core recommendations for “power” Excel users. But even for dedicated “keyboardists” there is still one mouse action that they miss – the right click. Some keyboards have a dedicated menu button (similar to this

) but there is also a shortcut that allows you to access the menu from anywhere in Excel: SHIFT F10. This handy shortcut reveals the menu and also keeps the mouse idle (or in your drawer) in circumstances when we normally click, such as drilling down in a pivot table.

Course Profile – Real Estate Development Project Model

We are turning our attention to one of the oldest asset classes in the history of the world . . . real estate. In prior models that we have built for real estate projects, we have learned that project models require some unique techniques to make them robust and flexible. This two-day course is suited for anyone who is active in real estate or wants to learn how to model a real estate development project. You can find the course description here.

The session on March 9 & 10, 2017 is sold out but we are holding the course again on May 31 & June 1, 2017 and you can register here.

Please contact Dave Thomas at Dave.Thomas@MarqueeGroup.ca if you have any questions.

The Quagmire

Welcome to our new section – the Quagmire. The problem is below and if you click here you can download the spreadsheet with the sample data for the problem. Here’s the fun part – if you have a solution to the problem (and there is almost always more than one solution) we will pick the three most creative solutions. Winners will receive prizes along with bragging rights.

Our first challenge comes from a situation we had with one of our consulting clients. The company’s finance department generated quarterly forecasts for up to three years into the future. There was a problem however, since the company’s new reporting system required monthly inputs.

The transformation is easy enough – take each quarter and divide by three for three consecutive months and repeat for each quarter.

Click here to read more

Upcoming Open Enrollment Events

Training Courses

Feb 21, Winnipeg, MB
Building a Financial Model (of a Company)
Register Now

Feb 22,Winnipeg, MB
DCF Valuation Analysis
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Feb 27-28, Ottawa, ON
Building a Financial Model (of a Company) / DCF Valuation Analysis
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Mar 1,Ottawa, ON
Data Manipulation with Excel – Part 1
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Mar 2, Toronto, ON
Capital Structure (LBO) Modeling
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Mar 3-4, Toronto, ON
Mining Financial Modeling
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Mar 7-8, Vancouver, BC
Building a Financial Model (of a Company) / DCF Valuation Analysis
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Mar 8, Toronto, ON
Building a Financial Model (of a Company)
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Mar 9, Vancouver, BC
Data Manipulation with Excel - Part 1
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Mar 9-10, Toronto, ON
Building a Financial Model (for a Real Estate Development Project)
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Mar 21, Vancouver, BC
Data Manipulation with Excel - Part 1
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Mar 21, Toronto, ON
Data Manipulation with Excel - Part 1
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Mar 22, Vancouver, BC
Building a Financial Model (of a Company)
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Mar 22, Toronto, ON
Data Manipulation with Excel - Part 2
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Mar 23, Vancouver, BC
Merger Modeling
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Mar 29, Toronto, ON
Merger Modeling
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Apr 5-6, Toronto, ON
VBA for Finance Professionals
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Next Accreditation Exam

Apr 29, Toronto, ON
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July 15, Toronto, ON
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For a complete list of all upcoming public courses, click here.

Contact us for more information:

The Marquee Group
56 Temperance Street, Suite 200, Toronto, Ontario, M5H 3V5
P: (416) 583-1802
E: Info@MarqueeGroup.ca

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