COURSE NUMBER: MBA236H.1A

COURSE TITLE: Financial Statement Modeling for Finance Careers

UNITS OF CREDIT: 1

INSTRUCTOR: Jenny Herbert-Creek

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

PREREQUISITE(S): Core Accounting; Core Finance; familiarity with Microsoft Excel

CLASS FORMAT: Primarily experiential -- the bulk of class time will be spent on hands-on Excel-based exercises. Some lectures and case discussions.

REQUIRED READINGS: 
Financial Modeling and Valuation: A Practical Guide to Investment Banking and Private Equity, Paul Pignataro
Excerpts from Investment Banking, Joshua Rosenbaum, Joshua Pearl, Joseph R. Perella

BASIS FOR FINAL GRADE: In-class assignments, homework assignments, final exam

CAREER FIELD: This class is most relevant for students pursuing careers in financial services and corporate finance, but any student wishing to practice the application of core finance and accounting concepts in Excel will also find this class useful. This course is designed for students without significant experience building financial statement models and is therefore best suited for career switchers or students who have not previously worked in investment banking or private equity.

ABSTRACT OF COURSE'S CONTENT AND OBJECTIVES: 
Financial statement modeling refers to taking historical financial statements for a specific company, projecting those statements two to five years into the future, and using the resulting projections for valuation and insight into the potential for transactions such as a strategic merger, an initial public offering, a leveraged recapitalization, or a leveraged buyout.

This hands-on course provides an introduction to financial statement modeling. Students will:
- construct a "3 statement" model projecting the income statement, balance sheet and statement of cashflows
- build a depreciation schedule, debt schedule and working capital schedule
- explore various methods to balance the balance sheet and how to handle circular references
- use valuation techniques such as comparable companies, precedent transactions, and DCF
- preview a larger transaction model, such as a merger consequences analysis or an LBO model
- utilize Excel features such as keyboard shortcuts, efficiency tools, and sensitivity analysis

BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH: 
Jenny Herbert Creek is a lecturer and consultant for programs in financial modeling, Microsoft Excel, technical communication and leadership communication. Her work draws upon more than 15 years of experience in the educational services industry, including serving as CFO of two educationally-focused companies. She is currently a member of the Professional Faculty of the Haas School of Business, where she teaches financial modeling and leadership communications to hundreds of MBA students each year. Jenny has also taught at institutions that include Berkeley Center for Executive Education, Stanford University, UCLA Anderson School of Business, the Olin School of Business and numerous corporations and start-ups. Jenny holds an MBA with honors from the Haas School of Business at UC Berkeley and is an honors graduate of Stanford University, where she earned the Dean's Award for Academic Accomplishment.