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2014/2015  BA-BHAAI1028U  Undergraduate Corporate Finance

English Title
Undergraduate Corporate Finance

Course information
Language English
Course ECTS 7.5 ECTS
Type Elective
Level Bachelor
Duration Summer
Course period Summer
Timetable Course schedule will be posted at calendar.cbs.dk
Study board
Study Board for BSc in Economics and Business Administration
Course coordinator
  • Course instructor - Dr. Joe French, University of Northern Colorado
    Patricia Plackett - MPP
Main academic disciplines
  • Finance
  • Management
  • Financial and management accounting
  • Economics, macro economics and managerial economics
Last updated on 01-07-2014
Learning objectives
At the end of the course the student should be able to:
  • Understand and analyse financial statements using ratio analysis
  • Understand the role of finance in a corporation
  • Understand the processes by which the company and its securities are valued in the market
  • Analyze long term and short term investment decisions made by corporations
  • Analyze the capital structure and dividend policies of corporations
  • Understand the pricing and management of risk
Course prerequisites
Students must have completed and received passing grades in undergraduate economics, undergraduate accounting, and undergraduate statistics before enrolling in this course.
Prerequisites for registering for the exam
Number of mandatory activities: 1
Compulsory assignments (assessed approved/not approved)
Mandatory Mid-term Assignment: Students will be required to do a short company analysis exercise in groups of two.
Examination
4-hour written exam:
Exam ECTS 7,5
Examination form Written sit-in exam
Individual or group exam Individual
Assignment type Written assignment
Duration 4 hours
Grading scale 7-step scale
Examiner(s) One internal examiner
Exam period Summer Term
Aids allowed to bring to the exam Limited aids, see the list below and the exam plan/guidelines for further information:
  • Allowed calculators
  • Allowed dictionaries
Make-up exam/re-exam
Same examination form as the ordinary exam
If the number of registered candidates for the make-up examination/re-take examination warrants that it may most appropriately be held as an oral examination, the programme office will inform the students that the make-up examination/re-take examination will be held as an oral examination instead.
Description of the exam procedure
Extra help aids - Notes brought by the examinee: 1 A-4 page of notes
Course content and structure
Every business decision has financial implications. This course is specifically designed to take business students with limited background in finance to a detailed knowledge of the major corporate finance decisions. Furthermore, students will obtain the requisite tools to make good corporate finance decisions. In particular, this course examines the principles and topics of financial management. Topics include valuation, risk, financial analysis and planning, working capital management, cost of capital, capital structure, dividend policy, and capital budgeting. 
Then the course begins by introducing students to the structure of finance, financial statements, and the analysis of those financial statements. The course then continues with the basics tools that will be utilized during the rest of the course, which include time value of money and the use of statistics to understand risk. At this point students will be required to complete a mandatory midterm assignment to ensure they understand the material to date. After students have an understanding of the above topics, this course will apply these tools to a number of corporate finance issues including: pricing risk and valuation of financial instruments, capital structure decisions, capital budgeting decisions, working capital management, and dividend policy.
The course includes a Preliminary Assignment and a Mandatory Mid-term Assignment. For the Preliminary Assignment students will be required to do a corporate governance analysis on a company they select and for the Mid-term Assignment students will be required to prepare a short company analysis in groups of two.

Class Schedule
ClassTopic (Reading)
Class 1Overview of corporate finance and review of financial statements (Ch. 1 + 2)
Class 2Financial statement analysis (Ch. 2 + 3)
Class 3Time value of money (Ch. 4 + 5)-Preliminary Assignment due
Class 4Interest Rates and Bond Valuation (Ch. 6)
Class 5Stock Valuation (Ch. 7) Mandatory Mid-tern Assignment due
Class 6Risk and Return (Ch. 10 and 11)
Class 7Capital Budgeting I (Ch. 8)
Class 8Capital Budgeting II (Ch. 9)
Class 9Cost of Capital and Capital Structure (Ch. 12 + 13)
Class 10Dividend Policy and Working Capital Management (Ch. 14 + 17)
Class 11Comprehensive Review
Teaching methods
Class sections will consist of a mix of lectures along with informal discussion and more formal cases and exercises.
Further Information
Preliminary Assignment: To help students get maximum value from ISUP courses, instructors provide a reading or a small number of readings or video clips to be read or viewed before the start of classes with a related task scheduled for class 3 in order to 'jump-start' the learning process.
Expected literature
Title:Essentials of Corporate Finance
Authors:Ross, Westerfield, and Jordan
Series: The Mcgraw-Hill/Irwin Series in Finance, Insurance, and Real Estate
Hardcover: 672 pages
Publisher: McGraw-Hill/Irwin; 7 edition (February 19, 2010)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0073382469
ISBN-13: 978-0073382463
Last updated on 01-07-2014