Corporate Finance: Value Creating Decisions

Course: Finance and Valuation
Instructor: Olivier Tabatoni

Course Objective:
This course is designed to introduce participants to the concepts and techniques of corporate financial decision-making. Financial decision making comes in two broad categories:

1. Financing Decision (Capital Structure): how the company should raise its funds
2. Investment Decision (Capital Budgeting): where the company should invest its resources

We will consider the effects of time and uncertainty in decision-making and discuss how to implement the firm’s ultimate objective: maximizing shareholder value.

Course Description:
Building on the concepts learned in Applied Accounting, the Finance and Valuation course will teach participants how to use the balance sheets and cash flow statements to determine the current value of a company. Using various case studies, students will work in class, individually and in groups to analyze the performance of various companies using formulas provided by the instructor. Through integrative case discussions, students will also learn about capital budgeting, the risk of return and the cost of capital as well as stock and bond valuation. The class is interactive with time for individual questions. With an overview of various theories, students have a chance to learn and discuss best business practices when it comes to dealing with financial decisions.

There are various instructors used for each course; the ones named here may not be the same professors assigned to every start module.