BFIN 300 – Business Finance Syllabus

School of Business

 Course Code:              BFIN 300

Course:                        Business Finance

Required Course Textbook:

  • Fundamentals of Financial Management, 10th Ed., 2004, by Authors Eugene Brigham and Joel Houston.

Prerequisites:

BACC 210 and BACC 260 (Principles of Financial Accounting I & II).

Course Description, Objectives, & contents:

This course is designed for finance and business students. It presents the basic theories and applications of corporate finance. The Business Finance course represents a crucial introduction towards Financial Management. It is a comprehensive, up to date, and highly understandable introduction to finance theory, and practice. The course covers eight major themes in Business Finance: understanding the financial management, financial statements, cash flows and taxes, analyzing financial statements, risk and return, time value of money, bonds, and stocks.

Evaluation and Determining Course Grade

  1. Attendance & Participation                            10 %
  2. Mid-term                                                         30 %
  3. Homework & Quizzes                                   20 %
  4. Final Exam                                                      40 %

Academic Honesty

The following list describes the types of academic misconduct that will not be tolerated in any way in this class:

  1. Cheating: Use of an unauthorized “aid” while taking a test, having another person take an exam or quiz in the place of the student, stealing an examination, using learning team work as an individual student’s work, unauthorized use of assistance from a lab or computer technician.

Note: If the instructor or an exam proctor sees/finds a paper or electronic device with course information during the exam, this will be considered as cheating and the student will receive a zero for the exam and possibly an “F” in the course. It is incumbent on the student to assure that all books, papers, notes, and electronic devices that contain course information are securely stored away — there is a no tolerance in this area.

  1. Fabrication: Falsifying data in laboratory results, inventing information for a report, falsifying citations to sources of information.
  2. Facilitating Academic Dishonesty: Aiding another student in committing academic misconduct.
  3. Interference: Stealing, changing, destroying, or impeding another student’s work. Impeding includes stealing, defacing, or mutilating resources to deprive someone the use of resources.
  4. Plagiarism: Using the ideas, words, or statements of another person without giving credit to that person. A student shall give credit to the works of others if the student uses another person’s words, ideas, opinions, or theories or borrows facts, statistics, or other illustrative material unless the information is common knowledge.
  5. Violation of Course Rules: A student shall follow course rules in the course syllabus when those rules are related to the course content or to the enhancement of the learning process in the course.
  • Students who commit any act of academic dishonesty may receive from the instructor a failing grade in that portion of the course work in which the act is detected or a failing grade in the course without possibility of withdrawal. The faculty member may also present the case to the Office of student affairs for disciplinary sanctions.

Method of instruction and course requirements

The Teaching Methodology of the course consists of the following:

  • Assigned Readings: Assignments drawn from the course textbook, and outside reading-articles extracted from journals or taken from other books.
  • Lectures: Power point presentations designed to clarify the assigned readings, case studies, and handouts. (if needed)
  • Class Participation: it includes active participation in materials introduced through subject discussions or personal experience.
  • Case Studies: Students will have to prepare and discuss cases in class. Cases will act as a support to the chapter discussed and it will highlight examples from today’s challenges.
  • Internet Exercise: Students will be given interactive Internet exercises to familiarize them with different ways to use the internet.
  • Review Questions: The review questions will be given as homework. This will enable students to understand key points in each chapter.
  • Excel Exercises:  Includes homework and class discussion on using Excel spread sheets as an introduction to financial communication using information systems.

Attendance Policy

  1. Attendance in all classes during the entire time is required. There are no exceptions to this policy. If you are not in class, then you missed the material discussed in class. While students may encounter very extenuating circumstances (sickness of such severity that it prevents the student from attending classes, serious illness or death in the family), the fact that you are not in class means that you have missed the discussed topics.
  2. A “sign-in” sheet will be passed every class.  If you do not sign the sheet, you will be marked as absent even if you attended part or all the class session.  If you walk into the class late or leave early, the instructor may still mark you absent.  Your signature has to be clear and consistent every time you sign, if the signature does not match your previous ones, you may also be marked as absent.  Signing for another student is considered a breach to the honesty policy, under no circumstances a student may sign on behalf of someone else.

Participation:

Participation is expected during all classes. Students need to read their book chapters ahead of the class.  Students need to conduct research related to the material in order to gain understanding of the subject.

Homework and Quizzes:

Pop up quizzes will be conducted from time to time in class in order to make sure that students have read the material assigned for the class on that date.  Students also are expected to have reviewed previous material and last class discussion.

Pop up quizzes cannot be made-up if you miss a class. Missing a class would affect your attendance score. In addition, if a pop up quiz happens during a class in which you were absent, your quiz score will be zero. There are NO EXCEPTIONS. Your Homework and Quizzes grade will be affected because of not being in class during the pop up quiz.

However, since things may come up, and life is not always as we want it to be, your lowest two quizzes grades will be waived when calculating your total Homework and Quizzes grade at the end of the course.

Periodical homework will be assigned. All homework should be submitted on the due date, any late homework will be deducted 20% per each day it is late. Homework cannot be submitted later than three days after the deadline. Please follow the MLA style of writing in all submitted homework or papers.

Exams:

  1. There will be one midterm exam and one final exam. Each exam will cover the material discussed in class plus reading assignments. Anything that takes place in class to include discussions, videos, guest speakers etc. is testable. The exams will cover the whole material as indicated by the instructor.
  2. Exams in this course are typically multiple choice, true/false, and/or short answer questions, essay form and case studies.
  3. Students must be present for all exams. Students who miss exams for reasons other than those stated under the special circumstances provided under “Attendance Policy” above will automatically loose points off the make-up exam grade for every day or part of a day the exam is not taken.
  4. Exam dates * are as follows:
  1. Midterm: Sunday, November 27, 2011.
  2. Final Exam: please refer to university calendar.

*Exam dates are subject to change.

Course Reading Schedule:

Attention!

Make sure that you read the chapters assigned for class before you walk into the class. Expect a quiz on the material during the session. The quiz may address previously discussed topics.

Week 1:Introductory Session of Business Finance

Week 2:Chapter 1        An overview of Financial Management.

Week 3:Chapter 2        Financial Statements, Cash Flow, and Taxes.

Week 4:Chapter 3        Analysis of Financial Statements.

Week 5:Chapter 4        The Financial Environment: Markets, Institutions, and Interest Rates.

Week 6:Chapter 5        Risk and Rates of Return.

Week 7:Review

Week 8:Midterm

Week 9:Chapter 6        Time Value of Money.

Week 10:Chapter 7        Bonds and Their Valuation.

Week 11:Review

Week 12:Chapter 8        Stocks and Their Valuation.

Week 13:Review

Week 14:Review

Week 15:Final Exam

The schedule and procedures in this course, as outlined in this syllabus, are subject to change in the event of extenuating circumstances and/or as deemed appropriate by the professor.