ColumbiaX: Introduction to Corporate Finance

This course is a solid introduction to the core of modern finance, corporate finance, financial management, and investment analysis, and helps you learn how financial decision-making creates business value, investment returns, and drives long-term business success. This is the essential foundation you’ll need, from financial professionals, finance managers, investment analysts, portfolio managers, corporate executives, and business managers throughout the world. In this course you’ll gain a practical, hands-on appreciation for classic and fundamental financial rules and concepts and learn to use them to value businesses, bonds, stock and investment opportunities.

You’ll learn: time value of money, business valuation, company valuation, firm valuation, cost of capital, capital budgeting, discounted cash flow (DCF) valuation, net present value (NPV), internal rate of return (IRR), stock valuation, bond valuation, financial forecasting, investment analysis, and investment choice rules and strategies.

This course emphasizes the hands-on application of Microsoft Excel for Finance, Financial Modeling, Excel Financial Analysis, and Business Valuation Modeling. You will be trained in applying these tools for the analysis of investment decisions, creation of company valuations, evaluation of projects, cash flow forecasting, calculation of NPV and IRR and more. These are valuable financial modeling and valuation skills that are highly relevant in careers in investment banking, private equity, venture capital, consulting, corporate finance, financial planning, equity research, portfolio management, and financial analysis. This class is derived from the introductory finance course offered at Columbia Business School for first-year MBA students.

It is taught by an award-winning professor who has taught future financial leaders, investment professionals, financial analysts, and Wall Street analysts for over 20 years.

Whether you have a business background, or an engineering, technology, economics, or other non-finance background, this course will teach you what you need to know about finance, financial literacy, financial analysis, corporate valuation, investment management, and financial decision-making. The course will enable you to valuation companies, bonds and stocks; implement corporate finance frameworks, investment analysis frameworks, financial planning techniques, and capital investment evaluation methods; use financial decision making tools and build financial models in Microsoft Excel; and to make smarter financial and business decisions.