COURSE TITLE: Corporate Finance

UNITS OF CREDIT: 3

INSTRUCTOR: Avinash Verma

E-MAIL ADDRESS: averma@haas.berkeley.edu

CLASS WEB PAGE LOCATION (HTTP URL):

MEETING DAY(S)/TIME: Tuesday and Thursday, 8:00 - 9:30 AM

PREREQUISITE(S): 203

CLASS FORMAT Mostly lectures. Perhaps two or three cases

REQUIRED READINGS: Textbook, cases, handouts

BASIS FOR FINAL GRADE (midterm, final, paper(s), project(s), class

participation, or a mixture): mixture

ABSTRACT OF COURSE'S CONTENT AND OBJECTIVES:

As the name of the course suggests, it is concerned with financial decisions from the perspective of a firm. Two broad categories of the decisions that we shall look at more closely are evaluation of risky investment opportunities and the choice among various sources of financing these risky projects. A framework of decision-making is developed.  Important aspects of this framework include defining, quantifying, and pricing risk that characterizes future value of financial variables (such as cash flows, prices, interest rates, etc.) and the role that information plays in this process. Incentives and conflicts among various stake-holders in the firm are also discussed. Both the class discussions and the homework will emphasize analysis and application of theory to practical situations.

BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH:

I have a Ph.D. in Finance from University of California at Berkeley, where I have also been teaching since Fall 1999. I have also taught in the past at Rice University, Houston, TX; Indiana University, Bloomington, IN; Washington University at St. Louis, MO; Indian Institute of Management at Bangalore, India; and University of Massachusetts at Amherst, MA.

In over twelve years of teaching, I have had an opportunity to cover the entire gamut of courses taught in Finance. At Haas Business School at Berkeley, I am a member of "Club 6", membership in which is open only to those achieving ratings of 6.0 or better on a 7 point scale.

My research interests span capital markets and financial institutions, and my published research has dealt with the applications of options pricing to problems in banking.

I also have experience in consulting. I have worked on a variety of assignments including valuation of barrier options, valuing regulatory goodwill in the thrift industry, valuation of privately held firms, valuation of employee stock options, portfolio insurance, and evaluation of risk management strategies. The clients on these projects have included Cisco, US Department of Justice, Morgan Stanley Dean Witter, and Sempra Energy.