The Oxford Advanced Finance Program

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.

Targeted Groups:

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

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 a 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 Competencies:

• Strategic planning & thinking
• Financial statements
• Budgeting
• Financial risk management
• Business performance management
• Financial Economic Decision-Making
• Investment Decision-Making

Course Content:

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
• 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)