Think of finance as a subject that answers three basic questions:
- How do you evaluate opportunities for investment? – also known as the valuation question
- How do you choose between opportunities? – also known as the investment or choice question
- How do you fund or finance your investment decisions and choices? – also known as the funding question
At its heart, the ability to work with finance requires an ability to translate tomorrow’s returns into today’s dollars. At the simplest level, this requires you to calculate present values using a defined rate of return. At a more complex level, we add in payouts that vary with events, probabilities for events and distribution of investment returns based on your class as an investor. As a seasoned financial you adjust payments for likelihood, structure payments for tax efficiency and do analysis that zeroes into drivers of financial performance for a business – sometimes to identify and fix problems, sometimes to learn how to repeat and replicate outstanding results.
What are the prerequisites?
No prior knowledge of the subject is required except for familiarity with basic mathematics.
What topics are covered?
The Corporate Finance: First Course covers the financial statements (i.e. the balance sheet and profit and lost statements); time value of money; risk and return; opportunity cost; cost of capital; weighted average cost of capital and return measures; projected statements; valuation of a given entity at point in time. It aims to address the primary question “How do we derive a value for the entity and how do we determine if it represents fair value for that share?”
The Ratio Analysis course addresses four key concepts – liquidity, leverage, profitability and productivity. The Credit Analysis course focuses on the impact of leverage (financial and operational) on a business and the concept of degrees of operational leverage. It deals with the thinking behind the borrowing decisions of an entity. The Credit Process course focuses on the lending side of this equation.
Case Studies
- Business Finance Case: AMD: Valuation and Projections: Case Guide
- Finance Tax and Corporate Structure Case: Corporate Finance: LLC or C-Corp
- Finance Credit Applications Case: Credit Process: Baldwin Piano
- Corporate Finance Orientation Case: Electronic Arts: Corporate Finance
- Financial Analysis Case: Office Depot: Ratio Analysis
- Finance Case: Ratio Analysis: ODP and Staples
- Finance Risk Management Class: Risk for the Oil and Petrochemical Industry
What are the additional topics I can read up on?
Credit Process & Analysis
- Small Business Loans: Analyzing Cash Flows for Credit: Introduction
- Small Business Loans: Analyzing Cash Flows for Credit: Cash from Sales
- Small Business Loans: Analyzing Cash Flows for Credit: Trading Cash
- Small Business Loans: Analyzing Cash Flows for Credit: Operating Cash
- Small Business Loans: Analyzing Cash Flows for Credit: Numerical Example
- Small Business Loans: Investor Due Diligence and Pre Investment Audits
Additional SME finance topics
- Small business Loans: Lessons for SME Owners – Accounting to ratio analysis
- Small Business Loans: Small Business Association (SBA) non-direct Loans
- Small Business Loans: Regional financial initiatives
- SME Small Business Loans: Financing programs for small businesses
- SME Financing Basics: Operating Cycle, Books of Accounts and Forms of doing business
Accounting refresher
- Basic Accounting Short Course for small business – Course Guide
- Basic Accounting Short Course: Small Business Accounting Training- Integrating Sales, Purchases & Returns
- Accounting Crash Course: Purchases Journal and Purchases Ledger
- Accounting crash course: Sales Journal, Sales Ledger and Trade discounts
- Accounting Crash Course: Sales Journal and Sales Ledgers
Premium Content:
- Introduction to Financial Modelling
- Corporate Finance – First Course – Includes case study
- Credit Analysis – First Course
- Credit Process
- Credit Analysis – Financial Institution
- Credit Analysis – Financial Institution – EXCEL Example
- Ratio Analysis – Includes 2 case studies