International Graduate Business School

This course is a 1.5 credit hour, 6-day in-residence course that is the initial course in the Master of Science in Finance program. The course will run from Sunday afternoon through noon on Friday. It is the only in-residence component in the program, with the remainder of the program being conducted on-line.

The course is designed to give the new students in the program an introduction to the program, an overview of the various finance topics that will be covered in the program, and some learning tools that can be used throughout the course work.

A key focus of managers in public corporations is the creation of enterprise value and the way that value is shared between various suppliers of capital. This course provides an understanding of how financial markets function and how investors value financial securities.

This knowledge will assist the manager to understand how various decisions may impact firm and shareholder value. Topics covered include the demand for and pricing of debt and equity securities, portfolio theory, and the pricing and expanding role of derivative securities.

This course provides a detailed analysis of derivative contracts and their use in risk management strategies. As technology improves and corporations become more innovative, they will be able to isolate and break out more and different kinds of risk that then can be controlled and managed.

At this time, risk management is a new area in financial management but is developing very rapidly. This course will consist of two main parts. The first part of the course focuses on the building blocks of derivatives (namely futures, forwards, swaps, and options) and the factors that determine the value of these securities.

The second part focuses on the importance and implementation of risk management strategies. We will spend considerable time understanding the dimensions of risk management issues. We will also use cutting-edge software for analyzing risk management problems, such as Riskmetrics and Creditmetrics, and examine actual company cases. Prerequisite F741 for MSF

Advanced study in Finance. Topics can vary from year to year but often include capital structure theory, dividend policy, risk management, financial restructuring, current asset management, mergers, acquisitions, divestitures and international finance.

This course is designed to introduce and analyze human resources management utilizing am employment life cycle approach.

Particular emphasis is placed on the legal environment inextricably intertwined with human resources management and the effect this relationship has on human resource practice. Human resources strategy and the function of human resources within the organization is also explored, focusing on employment law as a component in business strategy that should be utilized to solve issues both creatively and effectively.

A key focus of most publicly owned companies is enhancement of shareholder value. The value of a firm is determined through investors' assessment of the efficacy of managerial actions. Three key finance decisions that affect investors' assessments are the form in which capital is raised, how the capital is employed, and how returns are distributed to providers of capital.

Managers and investors have differential access to information on the actions and impact of decisions. Investors try to compensate for this differential information by establishing governance structures to monitor and control management actions and by trying to read intent from management decisions. In turn management attempts to create a structure for analyzing decisions that is consistent with investors valuation if management action could be freely observed. This course investigates how agency relationships and financial contracting affect financial decisions such as capital structure, dividends, share repurchases, and managerial incentives.

A capital investment process will be developed that includes the application of analytical tools to assess the economic value created by capital investments, adjustments for project risk using external market information and simulation techniques, and the use of real options analysis to value management flexibility and strategic investments.