This course will provide a thorough understanding of the financial decisions that have to be made in a corporation. These decisions centre on the investment, financing, dividend, and restructuring activities of multinational companies, but also of smaller companies and start ups. The course also aims to train research skills in corporate finance. This is supposed to be a preparatory assignment for the students’ master theses in corporate finance.

The students should not only understand each decision-making area on its own, but should also be aware of their interdependence and its relationship with corporate value creation. Participants will be introduced to concept of shareholder value, its determinants, and how financial managers can increase and measure shareholder value. Overall, this course focuses on both the theory and models of corporate finance and converts them into tools that can be used to analyse, understand and help any corporation, large and small. More specifically, the course will cover corporate debt, capital structure, and financial distress. Similarly, the topic of investment banking is now also broadened and in a securities offerings context also involves manipulative practices of investment banks. The remaining topics of the course are the private equity, venture capital, mergers and acquisitions and pay-out policy.

Journal articles, cases.

This course is in transition for the:
* master Business Research - No specialisation
* master Business Research - Operations Research
* master Fiscal Economics.
See the Master Education and Examination Regulations for more information.

The following rule applies to master Business Research students who started the programme prior to academic year 2024-2025.
TRANSITIONAL REGULATION (EBC4057):
The master Business Research has been discontinued.
Courses of the Business Research master’s programme will continue to be offered until and including academic year 2025-2026 with exam opportunities running until and including 2026-2027.

The following rule applies to master Fiscal Economics students who started the programme prior to academic year 2024-2025.
TRANSITIONAL REGULATION (EBC4057):
The master Fiscal Economics has been discontinued.
Courses of the Fiscal Economics master’s programme will continue to be offered until and including academic year 2024-2025 with exam opportunities running until and including 2025-2026.


PREREQUISITES:
* Exchange students need to have obtained a Bachelor degree in economics or business administration.
* Exchange students need to major in finance in their Master.
* Basic finance concepts are assumed to be known and they include: concept of net present value, internal rate of return, CAPM, WACC, optimal capital structure theory, Lintner’s dividend model, agency costs, debt overhang, and moral hazard.
* An advanced level of English

Note that courses and workload are very demanding for all master International Business courses.