bsc Financial Markets

Finance 1: Financial Markets is a core module for BSc Accounting & Finance students, who are required to take it in the Autumn term of their second year. It is an elective for BSc Management and BSc International Business students in either their second or final year. The first year module IB114Financial Managementor IB125 Foundations of Financial Management is a pre-requisite.
Finance 1: Financial Markets is a pre-requisite for Finance 2: Corporate Finance, which BSc Accounting & Finance students must study in the second term of either their second or final year.

• Introduce you to the workings of the financial markets.
• Equip you with the knowledge to use quantitative tools for pricing stocks, bonds and derivatives, and for measuring risk and return.
• Develop a sound understanding of the main theories and models for valuing financial market instruments.
• Make you aware of key empirical tests of asset valuation models, and their implications.
• Provide you with structured opportunities to practise using the key tools and techniques of Financial Markets theory.
• Prepare you for advanced undergraduate and postgraduate studies in Finance.

• Corporate Finance

  Corporate Finance is a core module for BSc Accounting & Finance students, who are required to take it in the Spring term of either their second or final year. It is an elective for BSc Management and BSc International Business students, who can take it in either their second or final year.

  Both the first-year module IB114 Financial Management and the second-year module Finance 1: Financial Markets are pre-requisites.
• Make you critically aware of the key financial decisions taken by firms.
• Develop a sound understanding of the main theories and models of Corporate Finance.
• Make you aware of key empirical tests of those models, and their implications.
• Provide you with structured opportunities to practise using the key tools and techniques of Corporate Finance.
• Prepare you for advanced undergraduate and postgraduate studies in Finance.

The syllabus is taught as follows:
2 x 1 hour lectures per week; 1 x 1 hour seminar per week
Cost of Capital; Weighted average of cost of equity and cost of debt in the presence of taxes.; Risky debt; Valuation of risky debt using binomial option pricing. Effects of volatility.; Capital Structure; Irrelevance propositions, taxes, costs of financial distress, agency costs, signalling.; Payout Policy; Irrelevance proposition, taxes, transactions costs, signalling, agency effects. Share buy-backs as an alternative to dividends.; Company valuation; Discounted cash-flow techniques, dividend growth models, P/E and other methods, growth opportunities.; Company valuation Discounted cash-flow techniques, dividend growth models, P/E and other methods, growth opportunities. ; ; Initial Public Offerings IPO process, under-pricing, under-performance.; 

International Perspectives on Enterprise and Small Business

This module is designed as the second step in an 'Enterprise' pathway for WBS students. It is intended to provide the link between IB115 Business Planning - Integrative Project (although this is not a prerequisite) and more focussed modules such as IB395 Finance in New Ventures.
For non-WBS students the module will provide a stand alone introduction to entrepreneurship and small business within an international framework.
On completion of this module you should be able to:

• Demonstrate a critical understanding of received and emergent theoretical understandings of entrepreneurship and small business
• Demonstrate an appreciation of research approaches to small business and entrepreneurship
• Show an understanding of the role of entrepreneurship and small business in developing, transition and developed economies
• Provide a critical understanding of public policy measures for entrepreneurship and small business in developing, transition and developed economies
• Work in groups to prepare and present case studies
• Apply analytic skills to case studies
• Apply analytic skills through data secondary analysis
• Demonstrate oral and written communication skills
• Demonstrate an ability to identify appropriate theoretical frameworks for analysing case study and statistical data
• Demonstrate an ability to critically apply appropriate theoretical frameworks to data and case study evidence
• Show an ability to assess patterns of small business performance and entrepreneurship in developing, transition and developed economies
• Show the ability to question and critically evaluate existing analyses of entrepreneurship and small business

The syllabus is taught as follows:
2 hours of lectures per week; 1 hour seminar per week

• International Evidence on Entrepreneurship and Small Business
• Enterprising Nations
• Who are the Entrepreneurs?
• The start-up decision
• Gazelles and Elephants
• Growing Firms
• Small Business finance
• New technology based start-ups
• Sex, Drugs and Piracy
• Small business and entrepreneurship policy