GCER2113-1

Durée

90h E-Lrng

Nombre de crédits

	Executive Master in Accounting (Certificat organisé à l'étranger)	3 crédits

Enseignant

Langue(s) de l'unité d'enseignement

Langue anglaise

Organisation et évaluation

Enseignement durant l'année complète

Horaire

Horaire en ligne

Unités d'enseignement prérequises et corequises

Les unités prérequises ou corequises sont présentées au sein de chaque programme

Contenus de l'unité d'enseignement

Corporations create value for their shareholders by making good real investment decisions. The objective of this course is to define what good investment decisions are, and how to value investment projects. Several objectives could be pursued. The objective function of a private business firms is to maximize the stockholder's wealth, which implies to maximize the firm value and to protect debtholders from bankruptcy. The shareholder maximization objective is thus much more restrictive than the maximization of the enterprise value. Publicly traded firms pursue an even more restrictive objective by receiving instantly the feedback from the market on their business decisions.
Corporate finance theory deals with all the decision that a business can make and that could have an impact on its value. Every decision that a business makes has financial implications, and any decision which affects the finance of the firm is a corporate decision. The objective that will be followed in this course is the firm value maximization. Two methods of firm valuation will be covered throughout the course: the income approach or Discounted Cash Flow method and the market approach based on multiples analysis.
Corporate finance deals with the following questions:

In what long-lived assets should the firm invest? (Capital budgeting / Investing decisions)
How can the firm raise cash for its required capital expenditures? (Financing decisions and capital structure)
How should short-term operating cash flows be managed? (Timing of cash flows and short-term financing decisions)
How should the distribution of cash to shareholders be managed? (Dividend policy and stock repurchases)

This course mainly addresses the first question "Capital Budgeting" -which concerns the left-hand side of the balance sheet: the investment in real long-lived assets- and partially covers the management of short-term operating cash flows. Real investments like factories and machines are expenditures that generate cash in the future. Contrary to financial investments, their market values are not readily available on an exchange market. The challenge is therefore to borrow tools from market theory in order to derive the market values of those assets and compare them to their investment costs. A good investment decision will be defined as an investment that costs less than its market value and therefore where a bargain can be made. The management of short-term operating cash flows require a good monitoring and measurements of the cash conversion cycle of the firm.

Acquis d'apprentissage (objectifs d'apprentissage) de l'unité d'enseignement

At the end of the course, students will acquire the fundamental knowledge and understanding in financial management to perform a rigorous analysis of a capital budgeting problem.
Students will be able to:

Compute and forecast cash flows used for project or firm valuation;
Estimate the prevalent cost of capital to be used to discount cash flows;
Compute the Present Value (PV) of an investment project or a firm.
Monitor short-term operating cash inflows and outflows.
Perform a relative firm valuation.

Savoirs et compétences prérequis

Accounting and portfolio theory

Activités d'apprentissage prévues et méthodes d'enseignement

Ebook including video tutorials and online quizzes

Mode d'enseignement (présentiel, à distance, hybride)

Distance learning

Supports de cours, lectures obligatoires ou recommandées

The following reading will enable students to deepen their understanding of the key concepts seen throughout the course. It is recommended to read chapters 9, 10, 11 and 13 of

Hillier, Grinblatt and Titman, "Financial Markets and Corporate Strategy", McGraw-Hill, Second European Edition

The course requires basic knowledge in financial mathematics and financial markets. As a prerequisite, students are invited to read chapters 2, 3, 4, 5 and 23 of the above-mentioned book.

Modalités d'évaluation et critères

Quizzes

Stage(s)

Remarques organisationnelles et modifications principales apportées au cours

Contacts

Professor Marie Lambert: marie.lambert@uliege.be

Corporate Finance