| Unit name | Strategic Finance |
|---|---|
| Unit code | EFIM20024 |
| Credit points | 20 |
| Level of study | I/5 |
| Teaching block(s) |
Teaching Block 2 (weeks 13 - 24) |
| Unit director | Dr. Bence |
| Open unit status | Not open |
| Pre-requisites |
EFIM10005 Fundamentals of Accounting and Finance 1 or ACCG10052 Introduction to Accounting |
| Co-requisites |
None |
| School/department | School of Accounting and Finance - Business School |
| Faculty | Faculty of Social Sciences and Law |
This unit examines how financial management can be used to meet an organisation’s strategic goals.
The aims of this unit are to:
1. Provide students with the tools to enable them to analyse and appraise the strategies of organisations.
2. Enable students to link the strategic aims of an organisation to the techniques of financial
management.
3. Develop skills of team working.
On completion of this unit, students should be able to:
1. Understand how financial analysis can be used to
appraise organisational strategies.
2. Understand and use a range of techniques, models and
theories, including discounted cash flow techniques, portfolio theory, the Capital Asset Pricing
Model, the dividend valuation model, dividend irrelevance and theories of capital structure.
3. Recommend courses of management action based on an
assessment of financial data, for example, whether to invest in a new product, takeover a rival,
divest and so on.
4. Work effectively in teams
22 hours lectures for whole cohort
11 hours of workshops (computer based)
11 one-hour classes
Formative Assessment
Discussion in class, working through examples, tackling textbook questions etc. A limited amount of tutorial work will be taken in and marked to provide formative feedback.
Summative Assessment
A. 3,000-word group assignment requiring students to examine a finance topic in a UK listed company. (30%)
This assignment will test learning outcomes 1 and 2 and will ask students to consider finance in context, for example, students will be asked to study capital structure in a chosen company. Part of the mark will be based on peer assessment - students will be able to vary their group mark to a maximum of 20%. For example, if there are four students in a group and a mark of 60% was allocated then individual marks could range between 40% and 80% based on a peer assessment of contribution. The peer assessment will require students to assess the percentage contribution from each group member.
B. 2-hour unseen exam (70%)
Various relevant introductory finance textbooks exist e.g. ‘Corporate Finance’ by Ross, Westerfield and
Jaffe, published by McGraw Hill.
