COURSE CONTRIBUTION TO PROGRAM
The Corporate Finance course of the MBA will prepare you to be a financial manager and equip you with the necessary tools to make accurate investment and financing decisions. The course complements your core Finance course, and forms the second part of a two-course sequence covering Finance. We will focus on investment policy, project valuation ("How much is a project worth and which projects should I pick?"), capital structure theories ("How to finance a selected investment?"), pay out policy ("How should I pay investors?") and initial public offerings ("How and why does a company go public?).
Course Learning Objectives
The aim of the course is to provide a broad conceptual and practical foundation for analysing issues in Corporate Finance. The course is primarily case-based because it aims to enable you to apply the concepts you learn in practice.
Upon completing this course students should be able to:
- Understand the time value of money.
- Calculate financing costs and discuss the financing decisions of corporations.
- Analyze and value projects and companies.
- Understand the importance of asymmetric information and signalling in capital markets and financial decisions.
- Critically discuss the dividend policy of a firm.
- Analyze different methods of issuing securities and understand the stock price reaction to issuing securities.
Bibliography
The main reading materials for the course are contained in these required textbooks, all of which are available in ESADE's library:
- Fundamentals of Corporate Finance, by S. Ross, R. Westerfield and B. Jordan, McGraw-Hill Education (last edition).
- Corporate Finance by J.Berk and P.DeMarzo, Pearson Global Edition (last edition).
- Principles of Corporate Finance by R. Brealey, S. Myers and F. Allen, McGraw-Hill International Edition (last edition).
- Financial Management: Theory and Practice, by M. Brigham, E. Ehrhardt and R. Fox, EMEA Edition (last edition).
Also required for the course is a readings pack, which includes the business cases covered in the course as well as assorted readings. This material will be available online in Moodle. My lecture notes will also be available online in Moodle (as pdf files).
