This course provides a brief introduction to the fundamentals of finance, emphasizing their application to a wide variety of real-world situations spanning personal finance, corporate decision-making, and financial intermediation. Key concepts and applications include: time value of money, risk-return tradeoff, cost of capital, interest rates, retirement savings, mortgage financing, auto leasing, capital budgeting, asset valuation, discounted cash flow (DCF) analysis, net present value, internal rate of return, hurdle rate, payback period.
Offered By
University of Pennsylvania
About this Course
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Learner Career Outcomes
33%
started a new career after completing these courses
32%
got a tangible career benefit from this course
Skills you will gain
Discounted Cash FlowDecision-MakingCorporate FinanceCash Flow Analysis
Syllabus - What you will learn from this course
Week
15 hours to complete
Week 1: Time Value of Money
Welcome to Introduction to Corporate Finance! This first module will introduce you to one of the most important foundational concepts in Finance, the time value of money. Before diving into the Video lectures, I encourage you to take a look at the brief pre-reading for the course. Specifically, have a look at “Big Picture Course Motivation,” for additional motivation and context for the course, “Time Value of Money Overview,” for a motivation and context for our first topic, and “Quiz Problem Answer Input.” This last note is particularly important to avoid confusion with the problem sets. Then, go to the Video Lectures and start learning Finance!
4 videos (Total 41 min), 6 readings, 4 quizzes
6 readings
Syllabus20m
Big Picture Course Motivation15m
Time Value of Money Overview15m
Quiz Problem Answer Input10m
Lecture Slides10m
Finance Matters: additional information about the field of Finance10m
4 practice exercises
Problem Set 1: TVM: Intuition Discounting45m
Problem Set 2: TVM: Compounding45m
Problem Set 3: TVM: Useful Shortcuts45m
Problem Set 4: TVM: Useful Shortcuts45m
Week
23 hours to complete
Week 2: Interest Rates
In this module, we wrap up the Time Value of Money topic with a discussion of inflation before moving on to our second topic, Interest Rates, and introducing our third topic, Discounted Cash Flow Analysis. By the end of this module, you should feel comfortable with discounting and compounding arbitrary cash flow streams in order to value different claims and make better financial decisions.
4 videos (Total 49 min), 1 reading, 2 quizzes
1 reading
Lecture Slides10m
2 practice exercises
Problem Set 6: Interest Rates: APR and EAR1h
Problem Set 7: Interest Rates: Term Structure1h
Week
32 hours to complete
Week 3: Discounted Cash Flow Analysis
This module continues our discussion of discounted cash flow analysis by way of a capital budgeting case. (You might want to download or view the Excel file, “Tablet Case Spreadsheet.xlsx,” that I use in the lectures, but it is not necessary for understanding the material.) By the end of this module, you should feel comfortable valuing claims and making financing decisions in which the timing of the cash flows and compounding of interest is arbitrary (e.g., annual, semi-quarterly, monthly, etc.). Having worked through the problems, you should also be more comfortable with real world financial decision making related to retirement savings, home financing and refinancing, auto leases, and other scenarios.
3 videos (Total 50 min), 2 readings, 1 quiz
2 readings
Lecture Slides10m
Tablet Case Spreadsheet10m
1 practice exercise
Problem Set 9: DCF: Free Cash Flow1h
Week
42 hours to complete
Week 4: Return on Investment
This module closes out our discussion of discounted cash flow analysis and caps off the course with a discussion of return on investment. By the end of this module, you should feel comfortable with the notion of free cash flow and the ability to apply a set of forecast drivers to project free cash flows into the future. These are some of the elements of a basic financial model, which we will use to come to a decision about the tablet project and to analyze the assumptions behind our valuation.
3 videos (Total 48 min), 1 reading, 1 quiz
1 reading
Lecture Slides10m
1 practice exercise
Problem Set 14: Return on Investment1h
4.6
589 ReviewsTop reviews from Introduction to Corporate Finance
The professor is very patient, he spends a lot of time making sense of the equations and the calculation process, which helps me comprehend the concepts and their application really a lot. Thank you!
Having spent the most of my 20 year career full time in corporate finance i was pleasantly surprised to have new perspectives and takeaway points on key aspects on the subject. Highly recommended
Instructor
Michael R Roberts
William H. Lawrence Professor of Finance, the Wharton School, University of PennsylvaniaFinance
About University of Pennsylvania
The University of Pennsylvania (commonly referred to as Penn) is a private university, located in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States. A member of the Ivy League, Penn is the fourth-oldest institution of higher education in the United States, and considers itself to be the first university in the United States with both undergraduate and graduate studies.
Frequently Asked Questions
When will I have access to the lectures and assignments?
Once you enroll for a Certificate, you’ll have access to all videos, quizzes, and programming assignments (if applicable). Peer review assignments can only be submitted and reviewed once your session has begun. If you choose to explore the course without purchasing, you may not be able to access certain assignments.
What will I get if I subscribe to this Specialization?
When you enroll in the course, you get access to all of the courses in the Specialization, and you earn a certificate when you complete the work. Your electronic Certificate will be added to your Accomplishments page - from there, you can print your Certificate or add it to your LinkedIn profile. If you only want to read and view the course content, you can audit the course for free.
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