Financial Policy

With the increasing importance of financial decision making, the demand for people with the ability to make these decisions and to convincingly present them to upper level decision makers or corporate clients has grown. Responding to this demand, The University of Alabama's Department of Economics, Finance and Legal Studies offers a full year sequence of classes focusing on modern techniques for solving business and financial problems.

The Financial Policy Track within the master of science in finance is available to students with a strong quantitative background. This track is designed to offer advanced applied expertise in financial decision making. The main focus of this track is analyzing and solving financial and strategic business problems. Students selecting this concentration will have the opportunity to apply financial concepts to real world business problems focusing on areas of business finance that are often not addressed in undergraduate finance curricula. This program is designed to provide students with the more advanced background necessary to work in the problem solving area in a major corporation, in the business consulting area with an investment banking firm, or in setting up and running the financial aspects of a small business enterprise.

Couched within the highly rigorous master of science in finance, the general course sequence is as follows:

FI 505 Financial Policy provides the opportunity to apply finance theories to practical corporate financial issues. Emphasis is placed on analyzing issues dealing with corporate finance; and then making decisions to resolve the issues or problems involved. The cases involve actual companies which provide "hands on" experiences dealing with "real world" financial problems, analysis, and decisions.

FI 506 Mergers and Acquisitions introduces students to the world of megadeals and hostile takeovers. In addition to giving the student an overview of mergermania, the course also begins to prepare the student to participate in the financial aspects of takeover contests. Each student prepares a series of papers which applies concepts learned in class to a real world takeover contest. Toward the end of the semester, the students are separated into groups with some groups representing target company board of directors and other groups representing bidding companies. These groups then participate in a mock takeover battle.