Finance Concentration

Corporate Financial Strategy and Investment Banking

Open to Full-Time MS Finance Students

If you’re interested in corporate finance or investment banking, this optional concentration offers the advanced skills and knowledge you’ll need to succeed. Dive into risk management, capital budgeting, and mergers and acquisitions to gain a solid foundation for high-impact roles in corporate finance and investment banking. These areas are key to our students’ career success and are in demand across the industry.

In this concentration, students are required to take the following courses:

FIN 430

Advanced Capital Budgeting and Strategic Financial Management

FIN 430

"Prepare for the dark while it is light.” In an era marked by significant economic uncertainty and rapid technological advancements, the ability to identify, measure, and mitigate financial risks has become indispensable for finance professionals.

This course delves into the multifaceted landscape of financial risk management, covering a broad range of topics including market risk, credit risk, liquidity risk, and operational risk. Through a combination of theoretical frameworks, case studies, and practical applications, students will develop a deep understanding of the various types of risks faced by corporations and financial institutions, as well as the tools and methodologies employed to manage them effectively.

 

MBA Prerequisite: FIN 411

FIN 438

Mergers and Acquisitions

FIN 438

This course is a comprehensive graduate course in corporate finance that is taught using in-class lectures, class notes, and cases, each of which requires a team report and negotiated deals involving co-operation and competition with other teams. The subjects covered include corporate valuation as applied to friendly mergers and hostile takeovers. We also will cover relevant issues in securities regulation, insider trading law, and corporate-governance law.

 

MBA Prerequisite: ACC 401, FIN 402
MS Prerequisite: ACC 401, FIN 462

In this concentration, students choose two of the following elective options.

ACC 411

Applied Financial Statement Analysis with Data Analytics

ACC 411

The objective of this course is to develop and sharpen your analytical ability to use financial information to perform various types of applied economic and financial analysis. Managers formulate a firm’s business strategy and make operating, investing, and financing policy decisions to implement that strategy. The outcomes of those decisions are reflected in the firm’s financial statements which, along with other financial information, are used by equity and debt analysts, investors, lenders, creditors, bondholders, loan officers, debt-rating agencies, and numerous other external parties to evaluate the firm’s current economic performance and to forecast its future economic performance. A key aspect of the course is the link between managers’ strategic decisions and the resulting performance that gets reflected in the firm’s financial statements. This course develops the analytical and technical skills and related applied analysis techniques required to perform a wide variety of economic analyses using financial information. Among other things, applied financial analysis requires knowledge of the various techniques used to analyze financial information such as common-size and trend analysis, ratio analysis, modeling the predictable cash flow effects of sales growth, models of financial distress, forecasting techniques, valuation models, as well as the ability to select and apply the appropriate techniques in a given economic setting. This course develops your ability to perform economic analysis in a wide variety of real-world settings using a number of different applied financial analysis techniques.

 

MBA Prerequisites: ACC 401, FIN 402

FIN 443

Private Equity

FIN 443

The Private Equity and Venture Capital [PE/VC] industry is more in the popular press than ever before; funds are larger and more diverse than in any past generation, deals are bigger, scope is worldwide, and wealth-generation seems to be at levels heretofore unseen. Many argue that PE/VC drives major segments of national economies more than ever before, and that it is essential that the industry is better understood and weighed more heavily in the thinking and plans of policy-makers in government and commerce. This course provides exposure to what PE/VC is and how it works. We cover, among other things; the make-up of funds, the composition and operation of PE/VC firms, dealing sourcing, due diligence and investment process, and the roles of partnerships, GPs, LPs, ‘activists’ and Boards. At a higher level, we cover industry performance and competition, fund creation, some international aspects of the business, and differing approaches to financing in different alternative asset categories.

FIN 439

Corporate Restructuring

FIN 439

This course will enable the students to acquire a good understanding of the fundamental causes of restructuring events; the legal framework in which restructuring occurs; the likely consequences and risks involved in pursuing various restructuring strategies. After taking the course, students will be capable of deriving the value of securities issued by firms undergoing a restructuring events (with a particular focus on distressed firms). They will learn about famous restructuring cases and controversies, and will be exposed to the views of guest speakers who pursued a career in M&A and restructuring.

 

MBA Prerequisite: ACC 401, FIN 402
MS Prerequisite: ACC 401, FIN 462