Degree in Management of Business and Technology La Salle Campus Barcelona

Degree in Management of Business and Technology

Internationality, technology, innovation, creativity, entrepreneurship, values, and both people and team management are the keys to define this degree. Includes international stages.

Principles of Finance

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Description
This course provides an overview of the fundamentals of finance, exploring the key the concepts of time value of money and risk to help understand the major determinants of value creation. We will use both theoretical and real-world examples; the main objective of the course is to provide students with a strong foundation in finance, which can be scaled up in future finance courses or in real job situations. The course is aimed at students from varied backgrounds who may or may not have an interest in finance, but who will soon realize that finance can be fun, interesting and enormously useful.
Type Subject
Tercer - Obligatoria
Semester
First
Course
2
Credits
6.00

Professors

Juan Pablo Castells
Ute Sonja Busam
Oscar Andrés Fuentes Loyola
Previous Knowledge
Objectives

This course seeks to assist you in:
- Gain a basic knowledge of the main concepts of Finance: Time value of money, interest rates, returns, cash flows & the difference between investing & funding.
- Gain insight into how Risk shapes interest rates & returns
- Learn to analyze financial feasibility of business ventures
- Gain a basic knowledge of the main principles of Finance: proportion between Risk & Return
- Learn the necessary language and knowledge to participate in debates about how to improve financial performance for the better:
- Discount rate, PV, FV, NPV, IRRs, Payback, etc.

Students should hopefully develop a strong interest in the importance of financial knowledge to succeed in managing a company
It will make it then relatively easy to scale up their knowledge in future courses.

Contents

Below you can find the main topics that will be covered. The order in which they are covered might vary.
Topic 1: Time Value of Money
Topic 2: NPV and other Investment Rules.
Topic 3: Making Capital Investment Decision.
Topic 4: Bond Valuation.
Topic 5: Stock Valuation.

Methodology

The class will meet one day a week for three 50-minute sessions.

One session will consist of a lecture covering the main theoretical concepts covered in each of the course's 5 topics; a second session will focus on concept clarification, debate and problem-solving; the third session will be dedicated to case work.

Evaluation

Class work & participation 10%

Individual exercises & cases 10%

Group cases 10%

Midterm Evaluation 30%

Final Evaluation 40%

Evaluation Criteria
Basic Bibliography

I would recommend the following books:

Modern Financial Management, Ross, S., Westerfield, R., Jaffe, J., McGraw Hill Higher Education; 8th Edition, 2007

Additional Material