LibGuides: Strategic Finance: Course Outline

Course Outline

What is strategy
Types of strategies
Corporate strategy
Business strategy
Financial strategy
Potential strategic financial objectives of an organization(e.g. value of money, Maximizing shareholders wealth)
Relationship between decisions concerning investment
Financing and dividends
Impact of internal and external constraints on financial strategy.(e.g. funding, regulatory bodies, investor relations, economic factors)
Financial markets and financial instruments
Agency theory and Finance
Identifying investment opportunities and objectives
Evaluating investments in terms of return: expected return, required return and realized return
Ideas of diversifiable and non-diversifiable risks: in terms of portfolio
Market equilibrium and market efficiency: CAPM and APT
Discussion of financial markets and financial instruments
Various types of Stocks and bonds available in markets
Valuation techniques used to evaluate stocks and bonds
Calculation of cost of equity using dividend growth model

Calculating the cost of redeemable and irredeemable debt, including the tax shield on debt.
WACC: Logic of cost of capital & sources of funds
Identification of project’s relevant cost (i.e. infrastructure, marketing), benefits(i.e. incremental effects, future cash flows) and risks( i.e. financial & nonfinancial)
Calculation of projects net present value and internal rate of return including techniques for dealing with cash flows
Use of weighted average cost of capital to assess budgeting techniques
Effect of taxes and inflations on the techniques
Valuation basis of assets(i.e. historical costs, replacements cost), earnings(i.e. price earning and earning yield) and cash flows
Capital structuring and capital rationing
Consideration in the formulation of dividend policy and dividend decisions, including meeting the cash needs of the business
Miller & modigliani dividend Irrelevance theory.
Clientele effects and Ex-date effects
Dividend announcement date effects: the signaling hypothesis
Cash dividends, stocks dividends and stock splits
Working capital management strategies: Cash and stock management models
Calculation of operating and cash cycles
Analyzing various budgets including cash budget, sales budget, purchase budget etc.
Management techniques for account receivable and accounts payable