COURSE NUMBER: EWMBA231-11

COURSE TITLE: Corporate Finance

UNITS OF CREDIT: 3 Units

INSTRUCTOR: Thomas M. Mertens

E-MAIL ADDRESS:  mertens@berkeley.edu

PREREQUISITE(S): EWMBA203 Intro to Finance

CLASS FORMAT: The class is comprised of lectures and case discussions.

REQUIRED READINGS: We will use two textbooks (Berk and DeMarzo “Corporate Finance” and Higgins “Analysis for Financial Management”) as well as case studies and additional reading materials

BASIS FOR FINAL GRADE:
Class participation and professionalism: 20%
Case memoranda and homework: 40%
Final exam: 40%

CAREER FIELD:
The course is meant to provide a solid foundation for major financial issues confronting project managers and financial managers in small and large companies.

ABSTRACT OF COURSE'S CONTENT AND OBJECTIVES: 
Corporate Finance takes the viewpoint of the CFO. We assume in this course that the CFO’s job is to maximize firm value and deal with three types of decisions: which projects to invest in, how to finance that investment, and how to manage the cash flows of the firm. The topics range from capital structure (distress, mergers and acquisitions, public financing) and topics of interest relating to small companies (working capital management, private equity financing, venture capital). This is an applied course that will primarily use case studies to introduce financial tools needed to make value-enhancing business decisions.

BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH: 
Thomas M. Mertens has been a senior economist in Economic Research at the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco since 2015. Prior to working at FRBSF, he was on the Finance faculty at New York University’s Stern School of Business where he had taught since 2009. He held a visiting position at the Finance Department at the Wharton School in 2013-2014. Mertens holds a Diploma in Mathematics from the University of Bonn and a Ph.D. in economics from Harvard University.