SwiftTech, an IT company, developed a revolutionary app for online advertising. Its CEO, Emily, faces a dilemma: investors demand rapid growth and profit, while employees are urging caution because the app harbours potential risks and makes people do things they would not do if they understood the technology. Emily knows that pushing the app aggressively could skyrocket profits, but it might upset some of good employees. Alternatively, a slower rollout would provide more safety for users that employees ask for, but frustrate shareholders and delay or endanger profits. Emily has to decide. Which decision is morally right?

COURSE SUMMARY: 

VALUING SECURITIES & COMPANIES



The course on VALUING SECURITIES & COMPANIES will discuss the fundamental principles of corporate finance. These include investment decisions as well as financing decisions.

The course is also a prerequisite for the 2nd term lecture CORPORATE FINANCE & VALUATION and for the intensive lectures of the 3rd term like ADVANCED M&A and ADVANCED M&A & VALUATION - CASE STUDIES.

COURSE METHODOLOGY

The scientific framework of the course VALUING SECURITIES & COMPANIES is build upon the following corner stones:

Valuation of securities and companies

  • The purpose, the goals and the governance of the firm
  • The tao of valuation (methodologies): The NPV and IRR concepts
  • Debt capital markets: Valuing bonds
  • Equity capital markets: Valuing stocks
  • Alternative investment methodologies to NPV
  • Valuing investment decisions and projects
  • Introduction to the valuation of companies (Basic Enterprise-DCF valuation approach)

Portfolio theory: Risk, return and the Capital Asset Pricing Model (CAPM):   

  • Risk & return
  • Portfolio theory & Capital Asset Pricing Model (CAPM)
  • Risk & cost of capital (WACC, leveraged and un-levered cost of equity, beta, et al)


COURSE LOGISTICS, TIMING & CORE LITERATURE

IBF1 L

Lectures will be on-campus every Monday from 8:00 am to 11:20 am (room WX.XX). Lectures will start on October 07, 2024. 

Literally, to be up to date in financial market matters is a must for our lectures. Therefore, reading the ECONOMIST (weekly) and the FINANCIAL TIMES (daily) is mandatory. Besides, we will use a bunch of latest scientific articles (as will be discussed during the lectures). 

For the lectures the core text books will be: 

  • BREALEY, MYERS, ALLAN: PRINCIPLES OF CORPORATE FINANCE (2023). WILEY. and 
  • FEIX, T. (2021). VALUING DIGITAL BUSINESS DESIGNS & PLATFORMS - AN INTEGRATED STRATEGIC AND FINANCIAL VALUATION FRAMEWORK. SPRINGER GLOBAL BOOK SERIES ON "THE FUTURE OF BUSINESS & FINANCE".

It is intended to supplement the lectures by selected best practice presentations of blue chip M&A houses, strategy consultants and corporate finance, M&A as well as strategy departments of international corporations.


COURSE REQUIREMENTS

You should invariably read the assigned chapters, articles, and supplementary materials before you come to class and go over the assigned exercises and cases. Students are expected to carefully review the assigned reading materials before each session, diligently work on the assigned problems, pertinent questions, and cases, and to participate actively in the class discussions. You should be prepared to spend some time to digest the material, to work on the assignments and case studies. After the end of each session, you should review your notes.

I would like to invite you to create together with YOU an inclusive classroom and engaging learning environment where we will explore intellectual curiosity with respect, candor, courtesy, and courage! Contradicting views and perspectives are highly welcomed, at least if they are grounded on a reasonable argumentation line. Already in our first session we will confront the argumentation of the Harvard Business Review with a thought-provoking article of the Economist on the modern purpose of the firm.

Let's move...



This course contains additional material on how to research and write a scientific paper. This will be in particular helpful for those IBF students who did not write a Bachelor thesis during their undergraduate studies.

"Financial Market Decisions" is a 6 ECTS/4 contact hours mandatory module in the first semester of our International Business and Finance master programme. Students understand the essentials of mathematical decision theory as well as the psychological aspects of market participant behavior. They critically reflect the concepts for performance and risk measurement which are used to support decision taking in financial markets. They understand how to implement the concepts with real market data in the programming language R.

We will have face-2-face classroom sessions on Tuesdays from 11.40 am to 1.10 pm and from 2 pm to 3.30 pm and some virtual meetings in Zoom on Wednesday mornings from 8 to 9.30 am. We will also have two online sessions on Fridays from 8 am to 11.20 am. The course will start with an online session on Friday October 4th. For details please refer to the syllabus.

Your grade will be determined by a final exam before Christmas. Bonus points (in total up to 50%) towards the final exam may be earned via

  • DataCamp certificates for online self-study (20%) - each 4- to 5-hour certificate contribute 2 percentage points, the three introductory courses contribute 1 percentage point,
  • a research paper on a historical case of market failure (20%) and
  • the presentation of your paper (10%) in December.
Datacamp certificates are due on January 12th. Due date for the seminar paper ist January 12th, for the presentation slides December 8th (prior to the presentation).

Corporate Governance is the legal and factual framework for the management and supervision of a company. Incomplete contracts and differing interests principally provide opportunities for stakeholders as well as motives for opportunistic behavior. In this course we will discuss principles on corporate governance that have the task of restricting the leeway and motivations of the actors for opportunistic behavior through appropriate  arrangements.

Managing People will give students an overview about classical areas of International Human Resource Management, including some insights into behavioral psychology and general management topics like leadership and intercultural management.

This course will be held online on Wednesdays afternoon from 14:00-17:00h. Eventual Zoom data can be found in the course.


Topics: In this class, we will look at financial economics from a microeconomic as well as a macroeconomic perspective. Furthermore, we will discuss policies related to financial economics issues. Regarding the microeconomic aspects of financial economics, we will address questions such as: What are the functions of financial systems? Which problems could arise and how can those be addressed? How do firms, institutions and regulatory agencies try to ensure that the financial system works? Why is the regulation of financial systems so important? With respect to the macroeconomic aspects of financial economics, we will address questions such as: How does monetary policy work and how does monetary policy impact financial markets and the economy? What are the effects of monetary policy tools such as quantitative easing? What kind of exchange rate system should a country chose and what are the consequences for monetary policy? In terms of policies related to financial markets, we will address questions such as: What are important institutions in the international financial system? Why can a financial crisis occur and what could be measures to deal with a financial crisis? Should central banks pursue green monetary policy? What are current pressing issues regarding global financial stability and by which policies can such problems be addressed?

Date: Wednesdays, 09:45-12:30, room W3.15 (there will be one more session on a Saturday, tbd)

Assessment and contribution to module mark: written exam

Credits: 4 SWS / 6 CPs

Lecturer: Prof. Dr. Maria Lehner