LBUSI5201 Financial Management Course Descriptor

Course Overview

This course is designed to give students an understanding of the key financial concepts that underpin the decision making of businesses. Students will develop the knowledge and skills necessary to understand and discuss market-related and corporate financial decisions. Students will learn how local and global factors such as government policies and the global financial markets affect a business’s financial situation and how that impacts all business operations. Students will learn some key financial mechanisms and terminology and how these are used within a business context, and use the tools and concepts that underpin business finance to evaluate and make recommendations for real and hypothetical business scenarios. The topics covered by this course include: developing an understanding of the time value of money, using financial statements in decision making and understanding the nature of financial and capital markets and investment appraisal. Students will also consider the return and risk management issues faced by financial managers including the  legal, social, technological, and ethical considerations of financial decision making.

Learning Outcomes

On successful completion of the course, students will be able to:

Knowledge and Understanding

Subject Specific Skills

Transferable and Employability Skills

Teaching and Learning

This course has a dedicated Virtual Learning Environment (VLE) page with a syllabus and range of additional resources (e.g. readings, question prompts, tasks, assignment briefs, discussion boards) to orientate and engage students in their studies.

The scheduled teaching and learning activities for this course are:

Lectures/seminars/workshops

40 scheduled hours – typically including induction, consolidation or revision, and assessment activity hours.

Version 1:all sessions in the same sized group

or

Version 2: most of the sessions in larger groups; some of the sessions in smaller groups

Faculty hold regular ‘office hours’, which are opportunities for students to drop in or sign up to explore ideas, raise questions, or seek targeted guidance or feedback, individually or in small groups. 

Students are to attend and participate in all the scheduled teaching and learning activities for this course and to manage their directed learning and independent study.

Indicative total learning hours for this course: 150

Assessment

Both formative and summative assessment are used as part of this course, with purely formative opportunities typically embedded within interactive teaching sessions, office hours, and/or the VLE.

Summative Assessments

Further information about the assessments can be found in the Course Syllabus.

Feedback

Students will receive formative and summative feedback in a variety of ways, written (e.g. marked up on assignments, through email or the VLE) or oral (e.g. as part of interactive teaching sessions or in office hours).

Indicative Reading

Note: Comprehensive and current reading lists are produced annually in the Course Syllabus or on the VLE; this indicative reading list is a general guide and part of the approval process only.

Key textbooks:

• Stephen A. Ross, Randolph W. Westerfield, and Bradford D. Jordan. Fundamentals of Corporate Finance. 13th Edition, McGraw-Hill/Irwin, 2021.
• Eddie McClaney, Business Finance: Theory and Practice, 9th edition, FT Prentice Hall. 2011

Indicative Topics

Note: Comprehensive and current topics for courses are produced annually in the Course Syllabus or other documentation provided to students; the indicative topics provided below are used as a general guide and part of the approval process only:

• Using Financial Statements in decision making
• Understanding financial markets
• Investment appraisal
• Cost of capital
• Management of risk and return

Legal, ethical and technical financial considerations