| CODE | INS4193 | |||||||||
| TITLE | Applied Corporate Finance | |||||||||
| UM LEVEL | 04 - Years 4, 5 in Modular UG or PG Cert Course | |||||||||
| MQF LEVEL | 6 | |||||||||
| ECTS CREDITS | 4 | |||||||||
| DEPARTMENT | Insurance | |||||||||
| DESCRIPTION | The study-unit principally describes the theory and practice of business finance and financial management with special reference to the perspectives relevant to managers. Theory, and the models that flow from it, should provide students with the tools to understand, analyze and solve problems. The test of a model or theory will not be based upon its elegance but upon its usefulness in problem solving. The core principles of corporate finance are common sense ones, and have changed little over time. Corporate finance is only a few decades old and people have been running businesses for thousands of years, and it would be exceedingly presumptuous to believe that they were in the dark until corporate finance theorists came along and told them what to do. It is true that corporate financial theory has made advances in taking common sense principles and providing them with structure, but these advances have been primarily on the details. The story line in corporate finance has remained remarkably consistent over time. This study-unit tells a story, which essentially summarizes the corporate finance view of the world. It classifies all decisions made by any business into three groups - decisions on where to invest the resources or funds that the business has raised, either internally or externally (the investment decision), decisions on where and how to raise funds to finance these investments (the financing decision) and decisions on how much and in what form to return funds back to the owners (the dividend decision). Study-Unit Aims: This study-unit aims to: - equip participants with skills that will allow them to anticipate management strategic decisions in response to market conditions and shareholders aims and objectives; - prepare participants to use valuation techniques in a way that will enable them to assess possibilities to enhance values, identify capital structures and financing alternatives that optimise the cost of capital and shareholder value within the client’s own risk parameters; - give students the knowledge they require to enable them to recommend attractive, client focused changes to corporate and financial strategies that are value-enhancing and appropriate to current market conditions. Learning Outcomes: 1. Knowledge & Understanding: By the end of the study-unit the student will be able to: - understand, analyse and solve problems in businesses by making use of corporate finance theory and techniques; - use these to identify business development opportunities and to quantify the benefits of alternative financing and business solutions; - comprehend the assumptions taken in models used and how to optimise them. 2. Skills: By the end of the study-unit the student will be able to: - take better management strategic decisions; - use valuation techniques; - identify capital structures and financing alternatives; - optimise the cost of capital and shareholder value within a firm; - recommend attractive, client focused changes to corporate and financial strategies. Main Text/s and any supplementary readings: Main Text: - Corporate Finance and Investment: Decisions and Strategies, by Richard Pike and Bill Neale, Seventh Edition, FT Prentice Hall, Pearson Education Limited 2009. All students are expected to acquire the textbook since all lectures will be based on this book. - Principles of Corporate Finance Concise Edition: Richard A. Brealey, Stewart C. Myers and Franklin Allen. McGraw-Hill International Edition ISBN 978-007128916-0. - Applied Corporate Finance: 4th Edition. Aswath Damodaran. |
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| STUDY-UNIT TYPE | Lecture and Tutorial | |||||||||
| METHOD OF ASSESSMENT |
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| LECTURER/S | Philip M. Beattie |
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The University makes every effort to ensure that the published Courses Plans, Programmes of Study and Study-Unit information are complete and up-to-date at the time of publication. The University reserves the right to make changes in case errors are detected after publication.
The availability of optional units may be subject to timetabling constraints. Units not attracting a sufficient number of registrations may be withdrawn without notice. It should be noted that all the information in the description above applies to study-units available during the academic year 2025/6. It may be subject to change in subsequent years. |
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