Financial Analysis and Valuation for Strategic Decision Making
| Date | |
| Dec 16–18, 2019 | $6,350 |
| May 18–20, 2020 | $6,550 |
| Dec 7–9, 2020 | $6,550 |
"By gaining a comprehensive understanding of financial analysis and valuation, executives and other professionals will be able to better assess the financial implications of investments and other business activities and make decisions that create greater value."
– The program's Faculty Director Doron Nissim, Professor of Accounting & Finance at Columbia Business School
Creating value is the central task for any executive. To generate value, managers need to be able to assess the financial impact of their decisions, which in turn requires an understanding of financial analysis techniques and valuation methods. Similarly, investors, creditors, and other stakeholders use such skills in evaluating the implications of decisions made by managers. Financial Analysis and Valuation for Strategic Decision Making will help you evaluate the financial consequences of business decisions and how to value companies, businesses, and projects.
Please note that this program requires a basic understanding of the following:
- Financial statements, including the balance sheet, income statement, and cash flow statement
- How accrual accounting differs from cash accounting, including revenue and expense recognition and the basic principles of asset and liability recognition and measurement
- Time value of money and present value calculations
These concepts, above, are covered in Columbia Business School Executive Education program Finance and Accounting for the Non-financial Executive.
For a complete program schedule download the agenda.
Please Contact Us
Please contact our Learning Solutions Specialists at 212-854-3395 for a personal conversation to learn more.
IMPACT
By completing Financial Analysis and Valuation for Strategic Decision Making, you will gain an understanding of financial statement analysis, corporate finance, and valuation methods. You will learn how to evaluate the financial consequences of various operating, investing, and financing decisions and activities, including:
- Investments: mergers and acquisitions (M&A), capital expenditures, investments in intellectual capital, leasing, and more
- Strategies: product differentiation, economies of scale, cost leadership, outsourcing, economies of scope, diversification, and more
- Working capital management: just in time inventory, credit terms, factoring receivables, operating credit, and more
- Financing: level and type of borrowings, share repurchases, dividend policy, and more
For each of the above activities, we will discuss the impact on the financial statements and on key financial ratios, as well as implications for performance and risk assessment, forecasting and valuation. For example, how are M&A activities reflected in the financial statements? How do they affect key ratios such as profit margin and earnings per share? How do they affect expected cash flows, risk, and value?
Specifically, you will be able to:
- Understand the information provided by the financial statements and other disclosures as well as its limitations
- Reformulate and adjust the financial statements to facilitate an informative analysis
- Analyze the reformulated financial statements to evaluate the firm’s profitability, earnings quality, and growth prospects
- Develop cash flow forecasts and pro forma financial statements
- Evaluate investment and business risks and estimate the cost of capital
- Value companies, businesses, and investment projects
- Assess the value of mergers, acquisitions, and strategic alliances
- Analyze the impact of different business activities on the financial statements, key ratios and underlying dimensions, and value
- Conduct scenario and sensitivity analyses
Upon completion of this program, you will earn three days towards a Certificate with select alumni and tuition benefits. Learn more.
PROGRAM STRUCTURE
This three-day program is comprised of class lectures in which concepts will be developed and explained, with an emphasis on implementation. Participants will receive excel workbooks containing valuation models and various financial analysis tools and use them to solve real-world exercises. The class notes, excel workbooks and, most importantly, knowledge acquired in the program will provide participants with the tool kit needed for conducting financial analysis and valuation.
During Financial Analysis and Valuation for Strategic Decision Making, participants will explore the following topics:
Financial reporting
- Primary financial statements
- Secondary financial statements
- The relationships among the different financial statements
- Other disclosures, including the notes, MD&A, risk factors, and market risks
- Underlying accounting concepts
- Limitations and distortions of the financial statements, and implications for financial analysis and valuation
- Summary of line-specific GAAP and differences relative to IFRS
Ratio analysis
- Reformulated financial statements
- Profitability
- Earnings quality
- Growth prospects
- Risks and exposures
Relative valuation
- Price multiples and other methods of relative valuation
- Linking price multiples to fundamentals
- Implementing relative valuation
DCF valuation
- Basics of fundamental valuation
- The discounted cash flow (DCF) model for equity valuation
- Template for DCF valuation
- Forecasting Free Cash Flow (FCF)
- Steady-state ratios
- Weighted average cost of capital (WACC)
- Terminal value
- From DCF value to value per share
- Implementing DCF
- Sensitivity and scenario analyses
- Capital structure and payout policy
- Alternative valuation models
- Valuation settings
For a complete program schedule download the agenda.
PARTICIPANT PROFILE & TESTIMONIALS
Financial Analysis and Valuation for Strategic Decision Making is designed for upper- and senior-level executives, financial analysts, portfolio managers, and other professionals interested in deepening their knowledge of financial analysis and valuation. This is not an entry-level program. Participants should have a basic understanding of financial reporting and financial analysis, including financial statements, key accounting principles, and present value techniques.
This program is ideal for executives in financial roles, financial analysts, and portfolio managers. It is also ideal for executives in such departments as strategic planning, marketing, operations, product development, consulting, and sales who need a higher level of proficiency in understanding, evaluating, and making decisions based on the financial standing of their business unit, business, or organization.
Alumni and up to four of their colleagues are eligible for a 25 percent tuition benefit for programs lasting up to seven days. More on the Alumni Tuition Benefit.
Typical Participant Mix
Hear from Past Participants:
Pragya Pandit
Director at NCR Corporation
"This is unequivocally one of the best programs I have attended at Columbia or anywhere else in terms of intensity, insightfulness, and mere ideas it brings to mind."
Dr. Gurinder Wadhwa
Dentist at Adirondack Oral & Maxillofacial Surgery
“A complex subject made simple in two Excel sheets. Excellent program! Knowledgeable teacher.”
Annette Montoto
President at Microfinanzas Puerto Rico
"Although I am an accountant, I have not worked in accounting for a significant period. The material and models presented were a review, an update, and a learning experience for high-level executives. An excellent group of professional executives participating made the program more exciting."
Jerry Hogge
Deputy President, Leidos
"Financial Analysis and Valuation is an exceptional course for business executives, providing a perfect balance of key concepts and the practical application thereof. I highly recommend this program and Professor Nissim."
Omolara Akanji
Independent Director, Sterling Bank PLC
"The essence of Financial Analysis and Valuation is that you'll walk away with a detailed understanding of the market relating to the balance sheet, income statement, and cash flow analysis for any proposed M&A or Initial Public Order (IPO) for raising equity."
Upoma Dutta
Financial Analyst at HBO
“The program provided a solid set of tools and knowledge to help us value different business ventures and understand the different interactions of producing a financial analysis. I have definitely levered a lot of ground in just three days.”
FACULTY
Doron Nissim, Faculty Director
Ernst & Young Professor of Accounting & Finance
Professor Nissim earned his PhD in Accounting at the University of California, Berkeley, and joined Columbia Business School in 1997. He was granted tenure in 2005, and full professorship in 2007. He served as the Chair of the Accounting Division during the years 2006-2009 and 2014-2016.
Professor Nissim’s research is primarily in the areas of earnings quality, fundamental analysis, equity valuation, financial institutions, and corporate finance. His studies have been published in such internationally acclaimed accounting and finance journals as the Journal of Finance, the Journal of Accounting Research, the Accounting Review, the Review of Accounting Studies, Contemporary Accounting Research, and Journal of Banking and Finance, as well as in practitioner-oriented journals such as the Financial Analysts Journal and The Journal of Financial Perspectives. Professor Nissim’s research is frequently cited in the popular press, including The Wall Street Journal, Time, The New York Times, Bloomberg, Chief Executive Magazine, The Economist, and the International Herald Tribune. Professor Nissim served as an editor of the Review of Accounting Studies from 2006 to 2013, and as the director of The Initiative on Banking and Insurance in the Program for Financial Studies at Columbia Business School from 2015 to 2017.
At Columbia Business School, Professor Nissim teaches MBA, EMBA, MS, and PhD courses in financial accounting, earnings quality, fundamental analyses, valuation, investment management, financial institutions, and research methods. He also serves as the director of three executive education programs — Financial Analysis and Valuation, Finance and Accounting for the Non-financial Executive, and Finance and Accounting for New York Presbyterian Hospital — and he teaches in several other open enrollment and custom executive education programs.
Professor Nissim consults extensively, both to buy- and sell-side firms as well as to other entities. His consulting focuses on equity valuation, fundamental analysis, earnings quality, investment management, and financial institutions.
Professor Nissim has received several honors and awards, including a prize from the Financial Executive Research Foundation for “the article from those published in the Accounting Review, which had the greatest import for users and preparers of financial reports;” Morgan Stanley Award for Contributions to the Development of ModelWare Core Strategies; two nominations for the Brattle Prize at the Journal of Finance (outstanding paper in corporate finance); and two teaching awards: Columbia Business School Dean’s Award for Teaching Excellence in a Core Course, and Columbia Business School Dean’s Award for Teaching Excellence.