University of Texas at Dallas ---- School of Management

Course: BA 4347 (Applied Corporate Finance) – Spring 2006 (Monday/Wednesday, 11 to 12:15pm)

Objective: This course will pick up where BA 3341 typically ends, and cover financial analysis and
planning, business valuation, corporate financial decisions, mergers and acquisitions, working capital
management, and international financial management.

Instructor: Robert L. Kieschnick

Where and when to get help: My office is located in room SM 3.705 on the third floor of the School
of Management Building. While I am generally on campus during the day, I will maintain office hours
from 1:30 to 3pm on Tuesdays and Thursdays. I can also be reached by phone at 972-883-6273 or by
email at rkiesch@utdallas.edu. I have found that email is an effective mode of communication for most
questions.

Course Material: This course will be structured around the textbook: Financial Management: Theory
and Practice, E. Brighman and M. Ehrhardt (Thomson South-Western, 11th edition, 2005). As
supplements to this text, I recommend either Corporate Valuation by D. Frykman and J. Tolleryd
(Prentice Hall Financial Times, 2003), or Valuation: Measuring and Managing the Value of Companies, T.
Koller, M. Goedhart, and D. Wessels (John Wiley, 4th edition, 2005). These supplements are primarily
intended to provide you with additional help on your course project, but they are also useful for expanding
on certain topics covered in the main textbook.

Computing Requirements: You will find it in your interest to learn how to use spreadsheets to solve
financial problems, particularly if you decide to pursue a career in finance or accounting. Good books to
learn such skills for corporate finance are: (1) Spreadsheet Modeling in Corporate Finance, by Craig
Holden, Prentice-Hall (2002), or (2) Financial Modeling, by S. Benninga, The MIT Press (2nd edition,
1997). In addition to these skills, you should also become familiar with the use of a financial calculator.
As with professional certification exams, you will be allowed to use only a calculator on your exams. I
recommend that if you do not already have a financial calculator that computes the internal rate of return
for a sequence of cash flows, that you consider either the HP-12C or the TI BAII Plus, as these are the two
calculators that currently can be used on most certification exams (e.g., CPA, CFA, etc.). However, you
can also use a scientific calculator if you wish. Regardless of which calculator you use, you will be
responsible for learning how to use your calculator – I will not provide lessons on their use.

Basis for Evaluating Course Performance: You determine how much you will learn from this
course by what you do. If you keep up with the readings, attend class, ask questions, and work through
end of chapter problems, then you should do well in the course. I will try to help you learn the covered
material and evaluate how well you have mastered it. I will assign grades as follows.

Project: You will have one project, which will be described in separate handout.

Mid-term Exam: The mid-term exam will focus on the material covered prior to it. Exam grades will be
scaled so that the highest score is 100.

Final Exam: While the final exam will be comprehensive, it will focus primarily on the material covered
since the mid-term exam. Exam grades will be scaled so that the highest score is 100.
Class participation: I expect students to come to class prepared to discuss the material to be covered and
to ask questions if something covered is unclear. The essential point is that you will not learn as much
from this course if you do not do these things. Personally, I dislike the use of laptops during class time as
my experience is that they detract more than they add to the classroom experience, but I will assume that
you are mature enough to use them properly. However, be aware that I will assign a negative participation
score to any person or persons that I view as distracting me or the class with their laptop usage.

Grading: Using the above indicia of your mastery of the material, I will determine your grade for the
course as follows. Assume that your project grade is X1, your adjusted score on the mid-term is X2, your
adjusted final exam score is X 3, and your class participation score is X4, then I will compute your final
score as [0.3*X 1 + 0.3*X 2 + 0.35*X 3 + 0.05*X4]. Using these scores, I will assign letter grades
according to the following scale: A: 87.5 to 100, B: 75 to 87.5, C: 62.5 to 75, D: 50 to 62.5, F: below 50.

Honor Code: A student in this course is considered to be a mature adult whose attitude and conduct
should be compatible with professional standards. All academic work is conducted under an honor code,
which states: “I have neither given nor received aid for this work, nor am I aware of anyone giving or
receiving aid for this work.” As standard procedure during exams, place all coats, books, and other items
at the front of the room. No cell phones are allowed to be on or in your view during an exam.

Topical Schedule: A topical outline of the course is provided below. However, a schedule with
recommended readings is provided online on the course web page on your Campus pipeline account.
Financial Analysis
Financial Planning
Corporate Valuation
Cost of capital estimation
Corporate capital structure policies
Alternative corporate valuation approaches
Shareholder compensation
Mergers and Acquisitions
Corporate Restructuring
10 Corporate working capital management
11 Corporate risk management
12 Multinational Financial Issues