FINANCIAL POLICIES & INVESTMENT STRATEGIES - 1

The goal of the course is to apply fundamental principles of corporate finance to real companies and demonstrate how investors evaluate and value firms, given the adopted financial policies. The perspective is the firm value maximization: the focus is on principles that guide corporate manager decisions on financing and investing. In detail, business decisions are classified into three groups: investment, financing, and dividend decisions. At the end of the course, students will be able to fully understand and apply the process of valuation that represents the standard activity of a security analyst in a broker house.

Attending and actively participating to classes, studying the textbook and the other suggested materials, including the real cases used during the course, will allow students to:
1. Knowledge and comprehension
• acquire advanced knowledge of fundamental models of corporate finance and know how to apply them in practice, to comprehend how in reality the investment, financing and dividend decisions work.

2. Ability to apply knowledge and comprehension
• master the techniques to determine the cost of capital of firm in oder to discount the expected cash flows according to risk they embed
• identify the company optimal financial structure
• comprehend the consequences of the choices of dividend policies
• apply methods and tools acquired during the course to interpret the dynamics of corporate finance

3. Judgment ability
• evaluate the sustainability of the firm financial structure and its equilibrium
• evaluate the effects of different investment policies that the firm may choose

The main prerequisite is a robust knowledge of financial and management accounting and basic corporate finance.

Topics covered in this course include:
Managing Firms to Create Value – How the Firm’s Investments, Financial Structure, and Dividend Policy Affect a
Firm’s Value
Governance
Understanding How Investors Think
Analysing the Firm’s PAST Performance
Analysing the Firm’s Current Situation
Evaluating the Impact of Management Strategies and Decisions
Equity Valuation Part 1 – Approaches to Valuation
Equity Valuation Part 2 – Determining What a Firm is Worth
Conclusion: Managers, Markets, Investors, and Corporate Finance

Aswath Damodaran, Applied Corporate Finance: A User's Manual – 4th Edition,
ISBN-13: 978-1-118-80893-1

Supplementary study material - such as slides, papers, and exercises - will be prepared and made available on Moodle by the class's Professor.

CLASS ATTENDANCE
Class attendance is not mandatory but strongly recommended. Similarly, class participation is at least encouraged.
Class attendance and class participation do not directly affect the grade (e.g. the exam is the same for attending &
non-attending students).

Case Studies
Students are required to solve case studies on topics covered in class: case studies are not mandatory but provide
additional points (3pts max) to sum to the final exam mark to get the final grade.

COURSE EVALUATION (EXAMS & GRADING)
The course grade will be based on the course project (first half) and a final written exam (second half). The course will conclude with a written final exam composed of multiple choice questions both of a qualitative (theoretical) and a quantitative (exercises) nature. The overall grade of the final written exam will be based on a total of 31 points.

The course in conducted through frontal classes. Students are required to interract above normal to prepare specific project materials to be used for their assessment
All the material discussed in class will be available to students in Moodle. Classes combine fundamental principles of the subject with their practical application through exercises and real cases.

English

written