Finance and Strategy

Introduction and Aims

The overall goal of this course is to familiarize you with the techniques used in financial and strategic decision making.  We will investigate the key financial choices of a corporation and their impact on the overall strategy of the firm, including financial analysis, capital structure choice, payout policy, value creation, mergers and acquisitions and restructuring.

We will also investigate the impact of both financial and strategic environments on company’s overall strategy and financial management. This course will provide an overview of strategic and financial issues in both a domestic and an international setting. We would also expect students to be aware that Management Accounting, Finance and Business Strategy operate within an industry and institutional context.  The course will comprise of lectures and discussions and will be heavily based on mini case studies.

Course Objectives and Learning Outcomes

These are to:

• use advanced tools to critically evaluate a business and corporate strategy from a financial perspective
• explain and evaluate the financial consequences of strategic decisions
• identify and critically evaluate appropriate sources of finance and their associated risks and costs.
• analyse and critically evaluate strategic and financial information relating to past and future performance
• distinguish between various corporate strategy options of mergers, acquisitions and divestment in order to apply the concept of shareholder value creation