Dr Amil Dasgupta

Dr Dirk Jenter

This course is compulsory on the MSc in Finance (full-time) and MSc in Finance and Private Equity. This course is not available as an outside option.

Aimed at people with a good undergraduate degree and good quantitative skills, with some knowledge of economics.

• Financing
• Valuation

This core course provides a broad introduction to the key issues in corporate finance. The first half of the course investigates how companies should finance their activities by issuing securities (debt, equity, and convertible claims) and the interaction of business policy with financial policy. The aim is to understand what factors determine "optimal" capital structure and how the interplay of these factors can affect financing decisions in a way that creates value. The second half of the course covers project valuation, by discounting risky future cash flows accounting for differences in capital structure, and establishes how companies should select the set of investable assets. The course goes on to introduce further valuations methods, such as real options analysis, as well as key applications of valuation and financing concepts in the form of major corporate decisions such as mergers and acquisitions and initial public offerings. The course interweaves key conceptual material with a series of cases.

60 hours of lectures in the MT.

Regular classworks will be completed, handed in and marked as part of formative assessment for this course.

The recommended textbooks for this course are Berk and DeMarzo, Corporate Finance and Higgins, Analysis for Financial Management. Other recommended readings from relevant journal articles will be included in a study pack.

Exam (80%, duration: 3 hours) in the main exam period.
In class assessment (20%) in the MT.