48144 - Corporate Finance

Learning outcomes

At the completion of the course, students will be equipped with the fundamental concepts of financial management. This includes the ability to understand the firm’s governance, and to assess the impact of investing, financing, and risk management decisions on the firm’s market value, in a classical shareholder’s wealth maximization framework.

Course contents

Corporate Finance (48144) will provide students with an overview of financial decision making within a firm. The course focusses on decisions concerning how firms should raise funds in different forms, and how they should invest these funds in real assets. The first part of the course will deal with investment decisions, that is how to value investment projects and firms, while the second part will consider how to finance these investments. The final part of the course will examine how investment and financing decisions are related. In essence, the course is aimed at providing students with a thorough understanding of how financial decisions can create, destroy, or modify shareholder’s value.

Readings/Bibliography

The textbook for the course is the following.

- Brealey, R.A., Myers, S.C., and F. Allen, 2019, Principles of Corporate Finance, 13/e, McGraw-Hill.

A compact version of the textbook, including only the chapters we will cover during the course, is available with the following ISBN: 9781307465495.

Additional readings may be assigned by the instructors as the course progresses.

Teaching methods

Traditional lectures and classes (both in class and online).

Assessment methods

The assessment of the course will be based on a midterm and a final exam. The structure of both tests is the same.

Each test will include 8 multiple-choice questions (1 point each) and 4 exercises (2 points each) to be answered in 30 minutes. The midterm (final) will be based on the first (last) 10 class sessions. Both tests (i.e., midterm and final) will be in the form of a closed-book exam, and no textbooks or notes will be allowed. The final grade of the course will be the sum of the grades of the 2 tests. The highest score is 16 in both the midterm and the final; therefore the maximum overall grade is 32 (if greater than 30, it will be considered as 30 with honours).

Students may choose not to take the final exam in the abovementioned form (midterm and final), but rather a total exam at the end of the course. If so, the final exam will include 16 multiple-choice questions (1 point each) and 8 exercises (2 points each) to be answered in 60 minutes. The maximum grade is 32 (if greater than 30, it will be considered as 30 with honours).

The test assessment grid is as follows:
< 18: fail
18-23: sufficient
24-27: average/good
28-30: very good
30 cum laude: excellent/outstanding

Please note that to be admitted to the class tests (both the midterm and the final), students must register themselves via Almaesami. Booking the exam session is mandatory to sit the exams, and no exceptions to this directive will be made.

Teaching tools

Lecture slides and additional readings which may be assigned by the instructors as the course progresses.

Office hours

See the website of Massimiliano Barbi

See the website of Marco Bigelli