BUAD 306 Business Finance Fall 2024 4 0 units HOH704 Professor Kristy Jansen first part Office Office Hours Tue 8 00 9 30am Thr 12 00 1 30pm in office Zoom on request kjansen marshall usc edu Email Ricardo De la O second part HOH803 Tue 8 00 9 30am Thr 12 00 1 30pm in office Zoom on request rdelao marshall usc edu Course Administrator Email Teaching Assistants TA Office Hours Location and Meeting Times Marc Choueiti buad306 marshall usc edu Hammad Ahmed Kevin Lu Claire Lucas Jack Hutchins Mac Krause See course Slack channel Section 14784 14785 14788 Days Tue Thu Tue Thu Tue Thu Times 10 00am 11 50am 2 00pm 3 50pm 4 00pm 5 50pm Location HOH2 HOH1 HOH1 Course Description Effective financial decision making is essential to the success of any business Financiers CFOs treasurers controllers managers or anyone involved in financial decision making must understand the concepts of finance and financial management in relation to economic developments and in a world of market uncertainties BUAD 306 provides an introduction to the modern theory and practice of corporate finance The objective of the course is to gain an understanding of financial decisions that managers make in evaluating investment opportunities and how to finance those opportunities In addition we will explore how these decisions affect the value of the firm and how the firm interacts with the capital markets During the semester you will learn how financiers think what the role of the financial decision maker is and how financial management concerns the management of modern enterprise More specifically you will learn how financiers break down components of financial problems and how they then arrive at investment decisions as individual or corporate investors By the end of the semester you should be familiar with financial vocabulary understand aspects of financial theory develop skills in financial computation and appreciate the underlying financial mindset as well as incentives involved when solving problems of finance BUAD306 2024 Syllabus Page 1 Learning Objectives Through lecture worked samples and by learning to apply appropriate mathematical and financial formulas and functions you will be able to 1 Explain the meaning of time value of money and how to calculate and evaluate the trade off between dollars today and dollars sometime in the future 2 Perform discounted cash flow DCF and net present value NPV analysis in making financial decisions 3 Value capital assets using the Capital Asset Pricing Model CAPM highlighting the central role of portfolio diversification and the beta coefficient 4 Calculate the different criteria used to evaluate proposed investments e g NPV and IRR 5 Determine a company s financial risk and its cost of capital WACC 6 Recognize and explain the elements of optimal capital structure the effects of financial leverage bankruptcy and the role of taxes These course level objectives align with selected Marshall Program Learning Goals Required Materials The required text is Fundamentals of Corporate Finance 13th Edition by Ross Westerfield and Jordan McGraw Hill Education New York NY 2022 Use of an alternative edition is allowed but not encouraged since sets of problems examples and explanations may be different across the editions Recommended preparation Foundational courses in microeconomics financial accounting and business statistics Duplicates Credit in BUAD 308 Course Notes Additional course materials are accessed via Brightspace brightspace usc edu Grading Policies The grade is a weighted total of four non cumulative exams plus homework assignments Assignments Homework Exam 1 Exam 2 Exam 3 Exam 4 TOTAL of Grade 20 20 20 20 20 100 Your final letter grade will not be based on a mandated target but on your relative performance Historically the median grade for this class is about a B Grading Details and Assignments 1 Exams All exams are closed book We will provide a formula sheet for each exam You may also use excel to perform calculations using a single completely empty excel spreadsheet Use of any other resources will be considered academic integrity violation BUAD306 2024 Syllabus Page 2 All exams will use the Scantron multiple choice format Students must provide their own pens or pencils Students must take the exam in the lecture section in which they are registered The first three exams are 75 minutes timed exams held during regular class meeting times and in the regular class location Therefore there are no conflicts of exam times with any other course at USC The fourth and final exam will be held during USC final exams week scheduled by USC and listed in the syllabus below Exam Absence Policy Students are required to be present for all four exams If you are not able to take the exams on the dates and times specified in the detailed schedule you should not take this class There will be no make up exams However there are legitimate reasons for missing an exam If you provide documentation of a serious medical problem for missing a midterm exam your grade will be based on the score of the remaining three exams Your total score will then be determined by your relative performance with respect to those who have taken the same three exams However if you miss more than one exam we will be unable to assign a complete grade to you Additionally based on the USC policy no student can omit the Final or take it in advance 2 Assignments There will be four assignments posted on Brightspace during the course For each assignment we randomly grade some of them The final grade for your assignment is the average grade across all homeworks Answers to the homeworks will be posted online after submission for students to evaluate their performance 3 Participation Attendance and active class participation is mandatory While the attendance and participation will not be tracked or graded both are necessary for successful understanding and completion of the course Technology Policy Personal computers and wireless internet are a key part of today s technological culture but they also can distract you from the class discussion and dampen participation You may bring your laptops iPads etc to class for note taking but please refrain from browsing the internet updating your Instagram profile playing games instant messaging shopping etc Although you may think you are being discreet 90 of the time students engaging in such behavior give themselves away through inappropriate facial expressions lack of eye contact out