Insegnamento a.a. 2024-2025

30366 - FINANCE (MODULE II) - CORPORATE FINANCE

Department of Finance

Course taught in English

Student consultation hours
Class timetable
Exam timetable
Go to class group/s: 24 - 26
WBB (6 credits - II sem. - OB  |  SECS-P/09)
Course Director:
HANNES WAGNER

Classes: 24 (II sem.) - 26 (II sem.)
Instructors:
Class 24: OMBRETTA PETTINATO, Class 26: MARCO LOSETO


Suggested background knowledge

The course is quantitative. To feel comfortable during the course, you should be familiar with basics in financial calculus (including time value of money, annuities and perpetuities), statistics (including probabilities, variances/covariances and ordinary least squares) and accounting (being able to read information contained in balance sheets, income statements, and cash flow statements).

Mission & Content Summary

MISSION

This course serves as an introduction to modern corporate finance. Corporate finance is a set of principles that govern how businesses run. It is a study of how businesses should make financial decisions - ranging from investment choices to assessing the right mix of debt and equity. The course explores both investing and financing decisions, focusing on their role in the creation of shareholder value.

CONTENT SUMMARY

The course covers four main parts:

  1. The value of a firm - financial instruments, valuation concepts and decision rules.
  2. Risk and return - theory, empirical evidence and applications to capital budgeting.
  3. Financing decisions and market efficiency.
  4. Payout policy, capital structure and valuation.

Intended Learning Outcomes (ILO)

KNOWLEDGE AND UNDERSTANDING

At the end of the course student will be able to...
  • Recognize, explain, and reproduce core corporate finance tools and techniques, including applications in international contexts.

APPLYING KNOWLEDGE AND UNDERSTANDING

At the end of the course student will be able to...
  • Apply and interpret core corporate finance tools and techniques.
  • Apply and evaluate capital budgeting methods.
  • Analyze and assess corporate financial decisions, such as capital structure and corporate payout decisions.

Teaching methods

  • Practical Exercises
  • Individual works / Assignments
  • Collaborative Works / Assignments

DETAILS

  • Excercises: students work on exercises in class and as take-homes.
  • Case studies: several case studies are designed to give students a sense of solving allegedly real problems facing a firm.
  • Individual assignments: students work through roughly one dozen individual graded assignments throughout the course, these serve primarily to help students synthesize the material.
  • Group assignments: groups of students work on graded group assignments (cases).

Assessment methods

  Continuous assessment Partial exams General exam
  • Written individual exam (traditional/online)
     x
  • Individual Works/ Assignment (report, exercise, presentation, project work etc.)
 x    

ATTENDING AND NOT ATTENDING STUDENTS

Course assessment is identical for attending and non-attending students. Course assessment consists of:

  • An exam (30-100% of the final grade): The weight of the exam grade depends on the quality of the other components.
  • Case studies (0-20% of the final grade): The case studies are worked on and handed in in groups, and are designed to give students a sense of solving allegedly real problems facing a firm. The weight is 20% if better than the final exam, and 0% otherwise.
  • Normal quizzes (0-30% of the final grade): The normal take-home quizzes are individually assigned to students and contain numerical exercises and other question types and are aimed at helping students synthesize the course material and assessing their ability to apply analytical tools and their institutional knowledge. The weight is 30% if better than the final exam, and 0% otherwise.
  • A Midterm quiz (0-20% of the final grade): The midterm take-home quiz is scheduled around the time of the midterm break, and serves primarily as a test of proficiency. The weight is 20% if better than the final exam, and 0% otherwise. 
  • Unused case, take-home and exam grade components have expiration conditions, the details are covered in class.

Teaching materials


ATTENDING AND NOT ATTENDING STUDENTS

  • FAQ: an up-to-date guide to Frequently Asked Questions about the course, on Bboard.

  • Textbook: BREALEY, MYERS, ALLEN, EDMANS Principles of Corporate Finance, McGraw Hill, 14th edition. Full EBook access via Bocconi Library.

  • Course note packet: there is a course pack of class lecture notes, on Bboard.

  • Cases: a set of cases we work through in class, on Bboard.

  • Pre-readings: please see the course notes for some basic pre-reading to be done before the course formally begins, on Bboard.

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