75363 - Corporate finance

Learning outcomes

The goal of this course is to provide students with the fundamental tools to understand financial decision-making in the modern corporation. Topics include: capital budgeting/corporate investment, capital structure, corporate sources of funding, dividend policy, corporate contingent claims for financial risk management. The course frames these topics within the standard theories of risk and return, valuation of assets and market structure.

Course contents

- The balance sheet from a financial perspective

- Valutation (stocks and bonds)

- Capital budgeting (NPV, IRR, etc.)

- The cost of capital

- Dividend policy

- Capital Structure

Proficiency and knowledge of basic accounting are required.

Readings/Bibliography

Principles of Corporate Finance (12th Edition - outside the US) by Brealey, Myers, Allen. McGraw Hill International
First part: 28-1-2-3-4-5-6. Second part: 7-8-9-15-17-18-19

Teaching methods

The course unfolds over about 10 weeks. Some of them will be devoted to classical lectures while others will be taught in the lab where students could practice the main corporate finance concepts previously learned (excel or matlab).

 

Assessment methods

Exams. 

 In the first term (Sep-Dec), students can sit two Midterm exams that will consist of 2 exercises and 5 multiple choice (each worth 15 points). Each Midterm will last 45 minutes.

Oct. 27, 2017 14:00 (First Midterm)

Jan 23, 2018 10:30 (Second Midterm)

In the second midterm students can even sit for the Final exam that will consist of 4 exercises and 10 multiple choice (worth 30 points). if it were the case, the test will last 90 minutes. If students sat for the Final, the result of the first Midterm would be canceled out.

Student Class Assignments are intended even not mandatory, but submitting them may positively impact your grade (extra-points). Assignments will be posted on the hub course web site with the due date clearly marked. Please submit your assignment using this email address. Please, do not share your file to other groups. If you do so, you may lose all your extra-points. Moreover, in order to avoid any confusion, you are advised to deliver a file on which you have worked on a single machine.

Teaching tools

Matlab Licence
The University of Bologna has activated a MATLAB Campus Licence, thanks to which students can install MATLAB on their computers. Further details can be found here.

Links to further information

http://stefanomengoli.weebly.com/

Office hours

See the website of Stefano Mengoli

See the website of Marco Bianco