Corporate finance

Course details

Business leaders and enterprises across functions require sound financial fluency to drive a firm’s success effectively. An understanding of finance is essential for decision-making, participating in financial discussions, and having comprehensive insight into how an organisation operates.

The programme is designed to build your proficiency in finance at an executive level by demystifying the nuances of financial practice and providing an overview of how firms make finance-driven decisions. Over six weeks, you’ll develop the practical skills needed to value projects and measure the risk, return, and cost of capital. You’ll access tools to help you navigate your shifting financial landscape, and today’s learnings will be infused with research from leading scholars and industry experts. You’ll also explore the key topics that you’re changing financial practices, such as corporate governance and environmental, social, and governance (ESG) factors.

On completion of the programme, you’ll have a confident understanding of operational finance and the foundations to enable you to drive your organisation forward through informed decision-making.

This programme focuses on promoting fluency in the language of executive finance and on the essential financial tools needed to make critical decisions that enhance your organisation’s financial performance.

Yorganisation’s learning how to calculate the value of an investment project is followed by investigating the trade-offs of funding through debt versus equity and how this choice affects a project’s valuation. You’ll then work on project samples of crYou’ll business decisions and the implications of initial public offerings (IPOs) and mergers and acquisitions (M&As). Additionally, you’ll cover essential concepts in corporate finance, ESG factors and investing, corporate governance and how to solve issues that arise within these spheres at the board level and beyond.

Throughout the programme, a combination of research, real-world case studies, practical applications, and interactive components will help you apply the concepts covered to your own context.

Module 1 Valuation: Time value of money, net present value (NPV), and internal rate of return (IRR

Learn how to calculate the value of a project.

• Review the time value of money.
• Calculate the value of projects using NPV
• Articulate how IRR and payback period work and their drawbacks
• Evaluate real-world investment projects using cash flow valuations

Module 2 Financial decision-making: Measuring risk, return and the cost of capital 

Develop your understanding of financial decision-making strategies.

• Discuss how risk and return affect financial decisions
• Show how beta relates to the cost of capital
• Investigate the cost of capital of a publicly traded firm
• Estimate the cost of capital of a project to determine its value
• Deconstruct market inefficiencies by evaluating the capital asset pricing model (CAPM)

Module 3 Corporate finance: Raising capital effectively

Explore corporate finance in terms of capital structure, taxation, and bankruptcy.

• Identify the risks and benefits of raising funds through debt and equity
• Articulate the weighted average cost of capital (WACC) as applied to a real industry
• Illustrate the importance of capital structure in a firm
• Investigate how tax considerations affect capital raising
• Assess how a company’s capital structure affects itscompany’svaluations
• Analyse how bankruptcy affects capital raising

Module 4 Exit strategies: Initial public offerings (IPOs) and mergers and acquisitions (M&A)

Explore critical decisions companies make and whether value is gained through decisions.

• Review the process of IPOs
• Articulate the problems of IPOs
• Deconstruct the M&A process
• Measure the value added by M&As

Module 5 Corporate governance

Explore corporate governance issues in companies.

• Illustrate the importance of corporate governance in an organisation
• Articulate the effectiveness of boards
• Analyse executive compensation packages
• Assess the role of activism and joint ownership in governance
• Assess a company’s corporate governance issues and measures to resolve them

Module 6 Environmental, social, and governance (ESG) factors 

Discover the components of ESG factors.

• Identify the components of ESG factors and investment strategies
• Interpret the critical issues related to the measurement of ESG
• Articulate the implications of different ESG investment strategies
• Investigate whether ESG investing produces excess returns
• Deconstruct inputs to ESG investing strategies and returns