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The Advanced Finance Program

Overview:

Introduction:

This seminar brings together two most of the most important areas of financial management: Understanding Finance to Influence Strategic Decisions, and Financial Analysis, Planning, and Control.

Course Objectives:

At the end of this course the participants will be able to:

  • Think and manage strategically and plan more effectively for the future
  • Identify the role of financial management in strategic decision-making
  • Use the financial techniques of planning and control
  • Improve performance from the use of the tools of financial analysis
  • Develop business strategies 
  • Understand how financial management support strategic development
  • Broaden their financial knowledge
  • Develop and manage the financial aspects of their role more effectively, and enhance their performance.
  • Increase their self-confidence in dealing with financial issues and financial professionals.
  • Appreciate how such decisions may affect their departments or business units, as well as their companies.
  • Acquire the ability, when involved in decisions about investment, operations, or financing, to choose the most appropriate tools from the wide variety of financial techniques available to provide quantitative analysis.
  • Understand the exact nature and scope of the business problems to be analyzed
  • Obtain a quick ‘ballpark’ estimates of likely outcomes of decisions
  • Understand the implications and relative importance of cash flow as distinct from accounting profit in economic and financial analysis

Targeted Audience:

  • Financial Analysts
  • Financial Controllers
  • Accountants
  • Treasurers
  • Corporate Planning
  • Business Development Professionals
  • Middle and Junior Management as a useful element in their career advancement

Course Outlines:

Unit 1: Fundamentals of Strategic Planning:

  • What is strategy?
  • Strategic management
  • Strategic analysis
  • Mission
  • Objectives
  • Strategic decision-making
  • The strategic planning process
  • Environmental analysis
  • Resources analysis
  • Strategic choice and strategic decision-making
  • Strategic implementation
  • Corporate objectives and accountability
  • Forecasting financial data

Unit 2: Fundamentals of Financial Statements:

  • Financial statements
  • Balance sheet
  • Income statement
  • Alternative asset valuation methods
  • Cash flow statement
  • Common size (or horizontal) trend analysis of financial statements
  • Vertical trend analysis of financial statements
  • Segmental analysis of financial statements
  • Value-added analysis of financial statements
  • Understanding the cash flow cycle and the operating cycle
  • Break-even and multiple product break-even analysis

Unit 3: Capital Structure and Leverage:

  • Sources of funds
  • Capital cost models
  • Cost of equity
  • Cost of debt
  • The weighted average cost of capital (WACC)
  • Can we determine a company’s optimal capital structure?
  • Capital structure models
  • Preparing projections to determine financing needs

Unit 4: Capital Budgeting:

  • Future values, present values, and DCF
  • Capital budgeting principles
  • Methods of evaluating capital investment projects
  • Accounting rate of return (ARR) and payback
  • Net present value (NPV) versus internal rate of return (IRR)
  • How do you choose which method to use?
  • Equivalent annual cost (EAC) method
  • Capital budgeting methods
  • Capital asset pricing model (CAPM) versus arbitrage pricing theory (APT)
  • Does it make a difference whether we lease or buy?

Unit 5: Managing Financial Risks:

  • The value of perfect information (VOPI)
  • Types of risk
  • Risk management principles
  • Talking to your bankers about managing risk
  • How to develop the tools for your company?
  • How to minimize risk?
  • Insurance and hedging
  • Interest rate and foreign currency exchange rate risk

Unit 6: The Challenge of Financial Economic Decision-Making:

  • The practice of financial-economic analysis
  • Corporate value and shareholder value
  • A dynamic perspective of business Benchmarking your own strategic position/competitor analysis
  • The agency problem and corporate governance
  • What information and data to use?
  • The nature of financial statements
  • The context of financial analysis and decision-making

Unit 7: Assessment of Business Performance:

  • Ratio analysis and business performance
  • Management’s point of view
  • Owners’ point of view
  • Lenders’ point of view
  • Ratios as a system – pyramids of ratios
  • Integration of financial performance analysis – the Dupont system
  • Economic value added (EVA)
  • Predicting financial distress

Unit 8: Projection of Financial Requirements:

  • Interrelationship of financial projections
  • Operating budgets
  • Standard costing and variance analysis
  • Cash forecasts and cash budgets
  • Sensitivity analysis
  • Dynamics and growth of the business system
  • Operating leverage
  • Financial growth plans
  • Financial modeling

Unit 9: Analysis of Investment Decisions:

  • Applying time-adjusted measures
  • Net present value (NPV) and internal rate of return (IRR)
  • Strategic perspective
  • EVA and NPV
  • Refinements of investment analysis
  • Equivalent annual cost (EAC)
  • Modified internal rate of return (MIRR)
  • Sensitivity analysis, scenario analysis, simulation, and NPV break-even
  • Dealing with risk and changing circumstances

Unit 10: Valuation and Business Performance: 

  • Managing for shareholder value
  • Shareholder value creation in perspective
  • Evolution of value-based methodologies
  • Creating value in restructuring and combinations
  • Financial strategy in acquisitions
  • Business valuation
  • Business restructuring and reorganizations
  • Management buyouts (MBOs) and management buy-ins (MBIs)

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