Course Syllabus

Business Finance introduces the student to basic principles and applications of finance in a business setting.

Contact me at: cmount@walsh.edu

COURSE DESCRIPTION

Financial problems in the organization of business enterprises; internal financial management; financial analysis; budgets and financial planning; management of current and fixed capital; external financial management; characteristics of stocks and bonds; marketing of security issues, stocks, exchange operations, regulation of security markets; earnings as a source of funds; short-term and intermediate financing; financial aspects of reorganization.Prerequisite:BUS 101-102 and BUS 105.

REQUIRED MATERIALS

TEXT:Principles of Managerial Brief, 3^rdEdition, Lawrence Gitman.

CALCULATOR:Texas Instrument BAII Plus financial calculator.

COURSE OBJECTIVES

At the end of the course, the student will:

• Know the goal of financial management and how it is implemented.
• Be familiar with terminology commonly used in business and finance.
• Be able to conduct basic financial analysis and simple financial forecasting.
• Be able to apply time value of money concepts to personal and corporate decision-making.
• Be able to define, discuss and calculate a weighted average cost of capital and describe how it is used.
• Be familiar with capital budgeting terminology
• Be able to calculate the traditional measures of profitability used in capital budgeting decision making
• Be familiar with dividend policy and its role in value
• Be able to discuss capital structure and the role it plays is establishing value
• Create cash budgets and understand simple financial forecasting techniques.
• Appreciate the role of risk in the financial decision making process, the value of the firm and the capital budgeting process.
• Enhance Excel spreadsheet skills

POLICIES

Academic Honesty: The Division of Business and Economics subscribes to the University's Academic Integrity Policy stated in the most recent edition of the Walsh University Undergraduate Catalog. Misrepresenting someone else's work as your own will result in an F for the assignment.Cheating on an exam will result in an F for the course.

Exams: Students are expected to take exams at the assigned time.Make-up exams are given at the discretion of the teacher.If a make-up exam is given, only 90% of the score earned on the exam will be counted toward the student's grade.For example, if a make-up is taken and the student earns a score of 86%, the student's grade for the exam will be entered as 77% (86% X .90)

Cases:Four end-of-chapter cases will be collected (unannounced) and graded during the semester.Each case is worth 10 points.To be considered for credit, cases must be prepared in good form.

Skill Builder Exercise:  Two skill builder exercises worth 10 points each will be collected.  To receive credit, skill builder exercises must be turned in at the assigned time in the assigned manner.

EXPECTATIONS

• Students are expected to attend class regularly.
• Students are expected to behave ethically, honestly and professionally at times.
• Students are expected to complete reading assignments prior to the class lecture and be prepared to participate in class discussion.Following lecture meetings students should attempt to complete the assigned problems.As needed, class time will be devoted to discussing and solving any homework problems with which students may have difficulty.
• Students are held to the expectations established by the Division of Business and Economics attached to the syllabus

EVALUATION

Evaluation is based on performance in four areas: exams, cases, skill-builder exercises and a project.The point distribution for these is given in the table below.

Final grades are assigned as follows: