Master 2020/2021

Strategic Financial Management

Category 'Best Course for Career Development'

Type: Compulsory course (Finance)

Area of studies: Finance and Credit

Delivered by: School of Economics and Finance

Where: Faculty of Economics, Management, and Business Informatics

When: 2 year, 1, 2 module

Mode of studies: offline

Instructors: Anna Bykova

Master’s programme: Finance

Language: English

ECTS credits: 5

Contact hours: 52

Course Syllabus

Abstract

The strategic financial management is the compulsory course for 2nd year students of MSc in Finance, bringing together corporate finance’ and strategic management’ perspectives. Due to its integrating nature, the course covers major strategic financial issues related with financial accounting, investments, value creation and business strategy. Such issues are of particular important for company financial officers, managers and analysts involved or interacting with finance-related activities and decision-making process. The core principle of the course is the problem-based learning when students for the whole time work on the case-study “Business strategy evaluation” based on the data from one of the Perm region located companies. The issues to be investigated are also provided by CFO of these companies. Students collaborate with each other in small groups. During their work, they understand companies’ perspectives, evaluate major strategic corporate and investment decisions, and develop an integrated framework for value-based financial management and individual financial decision-making. Blending the theory and practice along with the learning-by-doing principle, allows for deep understanding key finance principles of measuring business success, value creation and companies’ strategies taking into account risk and uncertainty into investment decisions. The course is based on lectures, seminars, and case studies and self-learning.

Learning Objectives

• If the course will be completed successfully, students should be able to think critically, including self-reflection, and creatively in identifying, evaluating of the alternative solutions to business problems.
• If the course will be completed successfully, students should be able to solve complex problems to support financial evaluations and business management decisions including numeracy and quantitative skills.
• If the course will be completed successfully, students should be able to undertake research into a financially related business problem and to apply skills in the assembling and analysis of data collected.
• If the course will be completed successfully, students should be able to synthesize and use information and knowledge effectively.
• If the course will be completed successfully, students should be able to communicate with CFOs and teammates in order to produce efficient solutions within the certain time limits.

Expected Learning Outcomes

• Knows the basic concepts of SFM, understands the principles of developing a strategic goal and objectives, establishing key performance indicators, could evaluate and interpret financial ratios.
• Has an understanding of the value-based management concept of forecasting models within it, could evaluate and analyze the business strategies from SFM point of view.

Course Contents

• Introduction into the strategic financial management (SFM)
  Topic 1. Basics of financial modelling. Key functions of SFM. Essence of strategic financial management for modern corporations. Company’s financial modelling. Goals of SFM. Key features of SFM. Major concept of SFM. The functions of corporate financial manager. The role of capital market in explaining corporate performance: main assumptions. Aligning the goals of all company’s stakeholders. The life-cycle of the corporation at the capital market: funds raising, investing and benchmarks, returning money to investors at the capital market. Topic 2. Company strategy and its relationship with financial and investment decisions. The differences between financial model of corporate analysis and accounting model: the concept of cost and profits, the concept of money measurement, the concept of return and corporate performance measurement. The value creation and building blocks in corporate finance. Aligning the company’s strategy with investment decisions, budget constraints and growth opportunities. Types of corporate financial management. The mission of Chief Financial Officer of the Corporation (CFO). The role of corporate finance in building financial model of the firm. Financial function of SFM. Topic 3. Corporate Financial Strategy and Corporate Value. Business valuation. Key value drivers. Types of corporate value. Approaches to business valuation. Income approach. Relative approach. Coast-based approach. Patterns of corporate financing. The weighted average cost of capital (WACC) and corporate hurdle rate. Corporate cost of capital and financial leverage. Hamada adjustment to equity beta, its assumptions and limitations. The WACC and the principles of corporate return analysis. Factors, affecting the target capital structure: macroeconomic, microeconomic and firm’s specific factors. The decision-making on capital structure. Valuation of intellectual capital.
• Value based management (VBM)
  Topic 5. Value creation concepts. Return on Investments (ROI). Return on equity (ROE). Cash flow (CF). Shareholder value added (SVA). Key steps in firm forecasting analysis on EVA and SVA. Value creation and value destruction. Cash value added (CVA). Stern-Stewart consulting model. Economic value added (EVA). Principles of financial effectiveness in Stern-Stewart model. Market value added (MVA). Cash flow return on investments (CFROI) modelling. Companies classification based on SFROI value. Key differences between the models. Drivers influencing EVA, MVA, SVA, CVA, SFROI. Topic 6. Corporate governance and corporate value. Types of corporate governance. Managerial incentives, corporate investing decisions, managerial control, and capital structure choices. Management control and performance measurement. The use of economic value added (EVA) in firm’s performance measurement and managerial incentives planning. The role of shareholders (blockholders, takeovers, institutional investors, shareholder activism). The role of the board of directors (structure of the board, independent directors, supervision and monitoring). The role of the CEO (motivation, incentives, remuneration, turnover). Measuring the quality of corporate governance, ratings, disclosure. Comparative corporate governance and the Russian model of corporate governance. Ownership structure and corporate performance. The performance of owner-controlled firms and manager-controlled firms. The dispersed shareholder‘s ownership and corporate performance: the hump-shaped relation between concentration of ownership and market capitalization. Managerial ownership and its influence over the performance. The institutional ownership and its influence over the performance. The blockholder models and the benefits and costs of large shareholder monitoring. The monitoring incentives of blockholders and motivation to hold larger blocks. Topic 7. VBM implementation in SFM Principles of strategy evaluation based on EVA, SVA, CVA and SFROI models. CFROI. Company’s value before and after the strategy. Approaches to the strategy evaluation. Identification of key value drivers. Decomposition of goals and indicators. BSC development: identification of strategic goals, indicators and KPI. Business processes and KPI. Integration of BSC into company strategy, budgeting, motivation system, project management. Benchmarking.

Assessment Elements

• Class assignment
• Нomework assignment
• Class participation
  Handouts for the Assignment: annual Financial Statements and Reports for 9 (nine) companies from different industries (liqueur producer and distributor; mobile phone operator, retail grocery store, commercial bank; discount airline; large integrated oil and gas company; computer software company; R&D-based semiconductor manufacturer; R&D-based pharmaceutical manufacturer).
• Self-learning
  The work should be done within the small group (no more than three students). Students prepare the short summary with key conclusions and presentation (the presentation is about 20 slides, the summary is about 0.5-1 th.words). Students should be able to solve the task, present the results, and demonstrate the teamwork competencies.
• Exam
  The exam is the defense of the students project work. The jury consists of faculty members and company’s representativeness who assess the students’ work. The report should be send to the jury no less than two days before the defense.

Interim Assessment

• Interim assessment (2 module)
  0.25 * Class assignment + 0.2 * Class participation + 0.2 * Exam + 0.1 * Self-learning + 0.25 * Нomework assignment

Bibliography

Recommended Core Bibliography

• Asquith, P., & Weiss, L. A. (2016). Lessons in Corporate Finance : A Case Studies Approach to Financial Tools, Financial Policies, and Valuation. Hoboken, New Jersey: Wiley. Retrieved from http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&site=eds-live&db=edsebk&AN=1202839

Recommended Additional Bibliography

• Damodaran, A. (2012). Investment Valuation : Tools and Techniques for Determining the Value of Any Asset (Vol. 3rd ed). Hoboken, New Jersey: Wiley. Retrieved from http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&site=eds-live&db=edsebk&AN=442924
• Pablo Fernández. (2007). Valuing companies by cash flow discounting: ten methods and nine theories. Managerial Finance, (11), 853. https://doi.org/10.1108/03074350710823827?utm_campaign=RePEc&WT.mc_id=RePEc