Basic Finance

As an introduction to the concepts of corporate finance for a hospitality management program, this course has a two-fold objective. The first is to provide students with a working knowledge of major finance topics—capital structure and the cost of capital, dividend policy, working capital management, international financial management, bankruptcy and reorganization, hedging risk exposure, mergers and acquisitions—and develop competencies in the following areas: determination of the need for short-term and long-term capital, application of financial tools and techniques necessary for basic financial or investment decisions, preparation of financial statements, ratio analysis and sot-volume-profit analysis, and the set up of operational, cash, and capital budgets. A second objective is to develop competencies in two areas: valuation of future cash flows focused on the pricing of stocks and bonds, and preparation of capital budgets focused on the assessment of the financial feasibility of hospitality-related investment projects. In-depth case studies, carefully selected reading materials, computer-based exercises, research assignments and projects—many of which are set a hospitality industry context—contribute to a firm analytical grounding in the essentials of modern corporate finance.