Real Estate Initiative - Courses- Related Courses

Related Courses

INVESTMENTS

Faculty

Richard Evans, Professor of Business Administration and Donald McLean Wilkinson Research Chair in Business Administration

Course Description

This course will provide students with an understanding of the theory and practice of investment decision making. Through readings and case discussions, students in the course will examine how equities are priced in efficient markets. Using insights from modern portfolio theory and equilibrium models of security prices (such as the capital asset pricing model), students will develop a framework for assessing the risk-return tradeoff. Using this framework, students will evaluate the validity of theory and conventional practice as guidance for managing portfolios. Topics will include equilibrium asset pricing, modern portfolio theory, market efficiency, index models, equities, and fixed-income securities. While the course is designed for students whose career interests lie in the field of investment management, the topics covered and tools developed in the course will be useful for personal investment as well. Valuation in Financial Markets is a prerequisite for this course.

FINANCIAL REPORTING & ANALYSIS

Faculty

Justin Hopkins, J. Harvie Wilkinson Jr. Associate Professor of Business Administration

Course Description

This course is intended to provide students with a comprehensive conceptual and applied understanding of our society’s accounting and financial-reporting system and an in-depth look at the numerous factors that managers and executives must consider as they confront complex and difficult financial-accounting and reporting issues. Students will examine these issues from both a rigorous theoretical perspective and an informed practical perspective. Students also will explore such traditional issues as revenue recognition, cash-flow analysis, deferred taxes and leases, and contemporary issues such as pensions and other post-employment benefits, stock compensation, and financial derivatives. Although the primary focus of the course will be on accounting and reporting practices in the United States, students will also address the significant progress that has been made toward the convergence of U.S. GAAP and International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS). By the end of the course, students should be reasonably proficient at understanding, interpreting, and analyzing the information contained in corporate financial statements and their related footnotes and also able to judge the overall quality of a company’s financial reporting, identify critical accounting policies, and assess the reasonableness of those policies and their supporting estimates and judgments.
 

VALUATION IN FINANCIAL MARKETS

Faculty

	Michael Schill, Sponsors Professor of Business Administration
	Davide Tomio, Assistant Professor of Business Administration

Course Description

This course focuses on how financial assets and firms are valued in financial markets. It directly extends and strengthens the corporate finance principles from the required First-Year Financial Management and Policies course by applying valuation models to real financial data and assets. The course contains three modules: firm valuation techniques, option-pricing principles, and fixed-income valuation. The first module extends the First Year Financial Management and Policies course by considering more difficult firm valuations as well as alternate techniques for valuing firms. The second and third modules relate to the capital markets for which valuation principles from options and fixed-income instruments are used as building block to decompose the valuation of complex financial instruments.
 

MERGERS & ACQUISITIONS

Faculty

Michael Ho, Professor of Practice

Course Description

This course is designed to provide students with a practical understanding of the merger and acquisition marketplace, addressing such topics as why companies grow through acquisitions, how acquisition or merger candidates are analyzed strategically and valued financially, and ultimately, whether and how mergers and acquisitions create value for stakeholders. Takeovers and mergers are a daily fact of life, have evolved into a critical part of every CEO or manager’s strategic toolbox, and will most likely affect every person who enters the corporate world at some point in their career. Whether a student chooses to be a senior corporate manager, an M&A practitioner, or merely an informed armchair observer, the course is intended to provide the analytical framework to evaluate an acquisition from a strategic, financial, structural, tactical, legal, and ethical perspective. Students will apply learned content to real business situations, including the opportunity to develop, create, and present an acquisition proposal to an actual corporate client during the class.

FINANCIAL STATEMENT ANALYSIS

Faculty

Paul Simko, Frank M. Sands Sr. Associate Professor of Business Administration

Course Description

This course uses reported accounting data that provides a foundation for the application of tools and techniques to derive the measurements that aid in corporate valuation. Students will develop an understanding of screening, forecasting, and valuation tools that aid in the analysis and exploitation of information contained in financial statements. The course includes but is not limited to topics related to the use of ratio analysis, the theory and development of cash-flow and earnings-based valuation models, identification of financial statement management, and the impact of accounting principles and assumptions on valuation. Course content will encompass three modules. The first strengthens students’ understanding of key accounting relations and how detailed ratio analysis can provide a historical perspective on firm activities. An emphasis also is placed on the role of non-financial information used as supplements to required accounting reports. The second builds on this foundation with an explicit focus on common valuation and earnings-forecasting techniques that include financial model building using discounted cash flow, multiples, and earnings-based valuation methods. The final module identifies the critical accounting factors that may be unique to the given firm under evaluation. These factors will include identification of and adjustment for off-balance sheet assets and liabilities, multi-national operations, and detecting earnings management. This course should appeal to those planning careers in financial management, consulting, security analysis, investment banking, or credit analysis.