General Information
Corporate Finance studies how corporations finance their operations. The emphasis of this part of the curriculum is on shareholder value and company valuation. We will also study the cost of capital, introduce theories of capital structure, and initial public offerings. The objective of this course is to introduce the fundamental theoretical concepts of company valuation.
Further Information
Learning Outcomes
After completing this course, students will know and understand state-of-the-art tools such as DCF, Residual Income, EVA, and Multiples. In particular, participants will know how to determine the cost of capital for corporations and projects using real world data. Further, participants will learn how to identify value drivers by applying financial ratio analysis. Students will also be familiar with event studies in order to analyse how capital markets react to important corporate events like merger announcements or earnings announcements.
Prerequisites
There are no formal prerequisites. However, we recommend that every student participating in this course should have completed the equivalent of the 2-semester finance module, which is part of the Mannheim Bachelor program. The lectures generally assume basic knowledge in accounting (balance sheets, income statements, financial ratios), finance (present value methods, portfolio theory, CAPM), mathematics (calculus, optimization) and statistics (mean, variance, standard deviation, univariate and multivariate regressions). The course assumes that students already manage the material in Brealey, Myers, Allen, Corporate Finance, (McGraw-Hill, 10th edition, 2010), chapters 1–19.
Registration
Registration is via Portal2 (matriculated students only). Admission to the course is not limited and no application is needed.
Course Material
You can find all the information and course material on our E-Learning platform Ilias by joining the group “FIN 540 Corporate Finance I – Vorlesung”. Course contents, such as slides, etc., can only be accessed once the semester has started and the official registration is complete.
Policy regarding the revision of corrected exams
If you believe that your exam was not fairly graded (e.g., a mistake in the correction or unfair allocation of points), you can ask for your exam to be regraded. In such a case, you must provide a written statement in which you request a complete revision of your exam, provide reasons for why you believe to deserve more credit, and ask for regrading. Please note that we will regrade the entire exam and not just the passages for which you request regrading. The revision may also negatively affect your grade (e.g., we spot a mistake that was not previously identified). We will not modify the grade on the day of the exam revision.