The main aim of this course is to enable students to develop a sound understanding of the fundamental principles underlying the theory and practice of business finance; thereby providing a strong basis for further study of advanced finance theory and cognate disciplines.

The course will introduce students to a number of important concepts in finance, which lie at the heart of basic financial decisions.

First half of the course (taught by Dr. Filipa Da Silva Fernandes):

• Capital budgeting decisions/investment criteria
  
• Net Present Value, IRR and Payback period
• Comparing different projects
• Concept of risk
  
• Risk measurement and diversification
• Security Market Line (SML)
• Market beta and introduction to Capital Asset Pricing Model (CAPM)

Second half of the course (taught by Dr. Sola Kasim):

• Introduction to bond valuation
  
• Interest rate risk 
  
• Theory of interest rates
• Term structure of interest rates
• Introduction to financial options
  
• Stock valuation
• Basic financial option valuation
• Market beta and introduction to Capital Asset Pricing Model (CAPM)
• Options valuation
  
• Introduction to real options
• Real options
• Introduction to the Black-Scholes model

All the topics will be approached from both theoretical and practical perspectives.