Setting up optimal financing policies for firms or acquisitions
Professor Hamid Boustanifar teaches advanced corporate finance to EDHEC’s MSc in Corporate Finance & Banking students. His expertise lies in the intersection of corporate finance and strategy. Some of his current research focuses on the applications of textual analysis in finance, strategy and accounting. He tells us all about his class.
What can you tell us about your field of research?
I undertake research at the intersection of corporate finance, strategy, and valuation. Some of my current research focuses on the stock-market valuation of intangible capital (for example, human capital and brand equity), where we have found that the stock market undervalues these assets, and on applying textual analysis to construct otherwise difficult-to-measure firm-level attributes and analyse their impacts on firm valuation.
What are the main concepts and theories that students will encounter on your course?
We will cover advanced valuation techniques and best practices for valuing companies and details about initial public offerings (IPOs). We will study how firms should finance themselves (capital structure and how firms should decide on their payout policy (the choice of dividends or repurchases), as well as the valuation and modelling of acquisitions.
Are there books or publications that students should read in preparation for your course?
As we cover several different topics at an advanced level, students rely mostly on the extensive lecture notes I provide them, together with several case studies that we work on.
What kind of case studies will students work on?
Yes. Indeed, everything we learn in the course is applied to real cases and companies. For each topic we discuss in class, there is also a guest lecturer (typically from an investment bank), where more practical details and business cases can be discussed.
What do you expect your students to learn and have mastered on completion of your course? What skills will they gain?
They learn company valuation (a necessary skill for almost all corporate finance-related jobs), to understand how equity capital markets work and the skills required to set up optimal financing policies for a firm or acquisition.
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