1. Corporate Finance
John Collins

2. What is Corporate Finance
Finance is how executives manage revenues, expenses, and profits and indicates the success or failure of any venture.
Rules and government regulations vary by country on how to account properly for assets and liabilities.
Many disciplines within corporate finance
Basic finance and accounting
Understanding tax policies
International finance

3. Importance of Finance
Any business’s primary objective is to stay in business and the best way to do that is to make money
Leaders must understand finance and ‘the numbers’ to keep businesses solvent
Understanding finance also helps managers make better decisions inside their departments and outside of them, as well.

4. Financial Intelligence & Reading financial reports
Three common reports
Income statements
Balance sheet
Cash flow statement
Profitability is measured in steps
Gross profit
Operating profit
Net profit
Mind the footnotes accounts will use to describe their methodology

5. Financial Intelligence & Reading financial reports
Ratios allow comparing performance of companies in similar industries
Return on Assets / Equity
Leverage
Operating
Financial
Liquidity
Efficiency
Days sales outstanding
Return on sales
Price to earnings

6. International Trade Many risks due to variability in country laws
Product, production and transport risks.
Commercial risks.
Adverse business risks
Political risks.
Currency risks.
Financial risks 
Companies can exchange money across borders in different ways
Bank Transfers
Check Payment
Documentary collection
Letter of Credit

7. Security Analysis Three functions of security analysis
Descriptive function
Selective function
Critical function
Three classifications of securities each with its own criteria for sound investing
Fixed-value securities
Variable-value senior securities
Common stocks

8. Exercise #1
Objective: Build skills in understanding how to read and understand financial reports.
The team should take 10 minutes to read through the same financial report of a public company. After reading discuss with the group the financial strengths and weaknesses of the company. Is this company a good investment based on its current stock price?