Executive Education » Live Online Programs » Finance » Financial Analysis and Valuation

Financial Analysis and Valuation

Date  
Jul 20–24, 2020 $4,350 (Live Online)
Alberto O. Cruz
Contact
Alberto O. Cruz
Director, Learning Solutions
+1 212-854-6037
alberto.cruz@gsb.columbia.edu

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Duration: 5 Days
Format: Daily live sessions from 9 a.m. – 2 p.m. ET
Certificate Credits: 3
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LIVE ONLINE FORMAT
Fully virtual, highly interactive programs featuring small group work for a high-touch learning experience.
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"What is the value of a business? How should one evaluate the profitability, growth prospects, solvency, or liquidity of a company? Does a company create value? Relatedly, how should executives select investment projects? And how do the answers to these questions change in periods of dislocation such as the financial crisis, COVID-19, or other situations? This program provides you with the knowledge and skills you need to address the above questions. By gaining a comprehensive understanding of financial analysis and valuation, investors, executives, analysts, 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

In this video, Professor Doron Nissim explains how the program helps executives understand the financial consequences of business decisions in their organization.

PLEASE NOTE: The July iteration of the program will take place in a live, virtual setting. See the agenda.

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 will help you evaluate the financial consequences of business decisions and how to value companies, businesses, and investments.

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

Financial analysis and — especially — financial valuation are often rightfully described as a form of art, but there is also a lot of science behind them. The Financial Analysis and Valuation program emphasizes these aspects of science and provides a structured framework for implementing each part of the analysis. A sound framework allows you to incorporate the “soft” aspects of the analysis (i.e., the “art”) in a more informative way.

By completing this program, you will gain an understanding of financial statement analysis, corporate finance, and valuation methods. You will learn how to estimate the value of equity and debt securities and how to evaluate the financial consequences of various business 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

PLEASE NOTE: The July iteration of the program will take place in a live, virtual setting. See the agenda.

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, participants will explore the following topics:

Financial reporting

  • Financial statements
  • Underlying accounting concepts
  • Summary of line-specific U.S. GAAP and differences relative to IFRS
  • Limitations and distortions of the financial statements, and implications for financial analysis and valuation

Earnings quality and non-GAAP reporting

  • Determinants of earnings quality
  • Evaluating earnings quality
  • Non-GAAP earnings

Ratio analysis

  • Reformulated financial statements
  • Profitability decomposition
  • Measuring recurring operating profitability
  • Fundamental risk analysis
  • Determinants and impact of capital structure and payout policy

Capital budgeting and project evaluation

  • Steps in capital budgeting
  • Investment criteria
  • Implementation

Forecasting financial statements

  • Information for forecasting
  • Forecasting revenue
  • Forecasting key ratios and deriving free cash flow

Relative valuation

  • Price multiples and other methods of relative valuation
  • Linking price multiples to fundamentals
  • Implementing relative valuation

Fundamental valuation

  • Fundamental valuation models
  • Cost of capital
  • Implementing discounted cash flow (DCF) valuation
  • Sensitivity and scenario analyses
  • Valuation settings

For a complete program schedule download the agenda.

PARTICIPANT PROFILE & TESTIMONIALS

Financial Analysis and Valuation 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.

Columbia Business School alumni and up to four of their colleagues are eligible for a 25 percent tuition benefit for this program. More on the Alumni Tuition Benefit.

Typical Participant Mix

Geographic Spread

Years of Management Experience

Job Function

Industry

 

Hear from Past Participants:

 

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, Journal of Banking and Finance, and Journal of Financial Intermediation, 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.

FAQ

 
Do you have questions about our live online programs? Please review our commonly asked questions on our live online programs FAQs page.

* Program location may vary. While the majority of our programs run on campus, some programs may run off campus in New York City.