Course details

Overview ?

The Course

This course offers insights into the world of corporate finance, risk, and governance. Capital markets are central the globalization phenomenon and essential for a well-functioning society. Because of this centrality and essential nature to societies, focus and attention must be paid to their proper functioning and oversight. To that end, this course offers an overview of the interaction between management and all other stakeholders. Diverse and complex stakeholder demands are best met by an efficient allocation of resources over an extended period of time.

By combining techniques analysis, problems and examples with real case studies the course provides delegates with key finance terminology and practice. This course not only presents the key financial tools generally used, but also explains the broader context of how and where they are applied to obtain meaningful answers. It provides a conceptual backdrop both for the financial/economic dimensions of strategic business management and for understanding the nature of financial statements, analyzing data, planning and controlling.

The course is targeted at providing a university-quality ‘MBA’ overview of finance, risk management, and corporate governance. Participants are expected to be high-potential learners seeking the next level of learning. Additional bibliographies, readings, and spreadsheets will be provided as takeaways.

The Goals

This course will help you learn how to:

Specify the exact nature and scope of corporate financial reporting
Identify and criticize specific concepts, rules, and procedures are in place for corporate financial reporting
How & why Working Capital is critical in today’s world
What Working Capital options must be managed & how to do so
How & why Capital Structure can make or break a firm
What decisions must be made to properly decide on optimal Capital Structure
How & why Capital Budgeting can go so wrong if not performed properly
Capital Budgeting should usually add value to the firm
Identify and overcome limitations that are inherent in corporate financial reporting and/or corporate governance
Risk as a positive in analysis & decision making

The Process

This workshop will be highly participatory and your seminar leader will present, guide and facilitate learning, using a range of methods including discussions, case studies and exercises. Where appropriate, these will include real issues brought to the workshop by delegates.

Lessons learned from the seminar will be applied to your own organization. Key performance indicators (KPIs) for the critical success factors (CSFs) will focus attention on high priority action plans for taking back to your organization.

The Benefits

Attendees will gain by participation in this program as a result of:

Increased skill set in all phases of finance//governance
Greater ability to participate in and to lead the finance/governance process
Recognizing the increased professionalism to deal with the current and future topics
Increased recognition by the organization of their learning and professional commitment
Challenging themselves in an immersive learning environment

The Results

The organization will benefit by:

Improved appreciation for the finance/ /governance approach
Better integration of business plans and strategic intent
Reduced inter-functional territorial battles
Improvements in communications between staff and line management
Higher productivity during the decision making process

The Core Competencies

Attendees will gain in the following competencies as a result of the program:

Using financial information for guiding decisions
Clarifying KPIs across different functions
Building strategic thinking and implementation orientation into their professional lives
Challenging the status quo of finance/governance, risk management, and decision making
Recognizing the value of external standards, governance requirements, and measurements of qualitative elements
Identifying Value Creation principles as the driving force for decision making

The Programme Content

What is Finance & Working Capital – liquidity or bankruptcy

Finance is a numbers game
Yet finance is more than the numbers
The three major components of finance
Working capital (WC) defined
Relationship to current ratio
Components of WC
Inventory
Accounts receivable
Cash
Accounts payable
Notes payable
The critical rations to compute
What should they be & why
The questions to ask
The answers you want

Capital Structure – what it is & why it is important

Equity capital - what it is
Equity capital – calculating it costs/required rate of return
Debt capital – what is it really
Debt capital – calculating it costs/required rate of return
Weighted Cost of Capital (WACC) – why it is so important
Calculating your WACC
When & how to use WACC
Leverage: two-edged sword - defined
Operating leverage - calculated
Financial leverage - calculated
Combined leverage – Wow! Look at the impact

CAPEX - Analysis of Investment Decisions with What-if Risks

Cash Flows and the Time Value of Money
Discuss the capital project evaluation process
Ideas for the future with a multiple time periods horizon
Estimating cash flows within the business system
Net present value (NPV) & Internal Rate of Return (IRR) as preferred methods
Profitability Index (PI) & Modified Internal Rate of Return (MIRR) as reasonable alternatives
Defining the approval criteria and review process
Post-implementation audits of capital projects
Refinements of Investment Analysis
Dealing with Risk and Changing Circumstances – how do we explain?
Cost of Capital and Return Standards
Benchmarking Discount & Hurdle rates

Risk Management as an integral part of Corporate Governance

Understanding uncertainty and risk/opportunity
Identifying strategic financial risks
Identifying operational risks
Identifying functional financial risks
Assessing financial risks in each perspective
Finding our personal risk profile (appetite for risk)
Clarifying desired outcomes, expected outcomes, and actual outcomes
Performance measures – the need for FRM/ERM
Quantitative and qualitative risks
Developing FRM/ERM strategy – do we need a CRO?
Other risk issues to be concerned with: Joint ventures, alliances, product liability, environmental risk, outsourcing risk, growth risk, R&D risk, natural disasters, catastrophic risks, supply chain risk, reputation risk, and psychology of risk among others

Corporate Governance

What is Corporate Governance?
Corporate Governance environment
Relevance of Corporate Governance
Perspectives on Corporate Governance
- Shareholders vs. Stakeholders
- Voluntary vs. Enforcement
- 1-tier vs. 2-tier boards
- Chairman/CEO duality
- The independent director
- Corporate Governance models
- Structure & practices
- Emerging trends in Corporate Governance
- Principal-Agent theory and applications
- Independence in fact versus appearance