Valuing Projects and Companies

This course is a theoretically sound and practical exposure to valuation. As the final course of the Specialization, it will be useful to anyone in executing or critically evaluating company analyses conducted by experts. This course has been redesigned to make it a capstone experience. We have put together everything you have learned in the first three courses, modified frameworks and first applied them to carefully crafted real world situations (or mini-cases) and then presented you with a capstone project to value one of the most well-known companies of the past three decades. This Capstone Project will make you appreciate how finance is both a science and an art form.

Overview of Specialization & Course
This module contains detailed videos and syllabi of both the Specialization and this course. This specialization has been designed to enable you to learn and apply the powerful tools of modern finance to both personal and professional situations. The courses within progress linearly and build on each other and it is important for you to get an understanding of why this specialization may be relevant to your goals, again both personal and professional. Please review the videos and syllabi as they will give you a sense of the specialization and how this specific course fits within. The teaching style and philosophy of the instructors is also presented to you (hopefully) in sufficient detail. Most importantly, it will give you enough information for you to make a decision about whether you want to take this course, by itself or as part of a specialization.

Module 1
The first module of this course will modify the frameworks introduced in the entire specialization to value companies, where a company is essentially a complex collection of “projects.” We will tackle the difficult but critical first step of identifying a comparable company and analyzing it. A complete valuation framework needed to value a company will follow this analysis.

Module 2
Module 2 contains a mega example of valuation showcasing the application of alternative methods and preparing you for the Capstone Project at the end of this course and for the real world beyond. The first two modules will enable learners to test their understanding of advanced valuation techniques in two ways: (a) through a set of final exams that capture the key elements of valuation and (b) a Capstone Project that involves the valuation of a real-world company using real data.

Module 3
This module/week will be spent on a short wrap up video of the course and time for assimilation and review by learners to take the final exams. In the past, learners have really valued this time and hence it is built into this new structure/platform as well. Please note there are two finals that cover materials of Modules 1 & 2, and you need to attempt both.

Module 4
This module contains the first part of a multi-part Capstone Project designed with the specific purpose of showcasing both the science and the art of financial analysis. It is the natural end to a Specialization that begins with the building blocks of finance, is followed by a modification of the framework to incorporate the complexity of regulations and the tax code, and ends with a capstone-like experience in the last course with rich applications to complex projects and companies. The Capstone Project is therefore a natural end to the Specialization and will involve a detailed valuation analysis of a real company. You are strongly encouraged to spend a lot of time on this project, researching on the web and trying to put together everything you have learned. All the questions you are required to answer as part of this project, though machine-graded, provide you an opportunity to learn about businesses and the critical relation between that understanding and the art and science of valuation.

Module 5
This module contains the second part of a multi-part Capstone Project designed with the specific purpose of showcasing both the science and the art of financial analysis. It is the natural end to a Specialization that begins with the building blocks of finance, is followed by a modification of the framework to incorporate the complexity of regulations and the tax code, and ends with a capstone-like experience in the last course with rich applications to complex projects and companies. The Capstone Project is therefore a natural end to the Specialization and will involve a detailed valuation analysis of a real company. You are strongly encouraged to spend a lot of time on this project, researching on the web and trying to put together everything you have learned. All the questions you are required to answer as part of this project, though machine-graded, provide you an opportunity to learn about businesses and the critical relation between that understanding and the art and science of valuation.

Module 6
This module contains the third part of a multi-part Capstone Project designed with the specific purpose of showcasing both the science and the art of financial analysis. It is the natural end to a Specialization that begins with the building blocks of finance, is followed by a modification of the framework to incorporate the complexity of regulations and the tax code, and ends with a capstone-like experience in the last course with rich applications to complex projects and companies. The Capstone Project is therefore a natural end to the Specialization and will involve a detailed valuation analysis of a real company. You are strongly encouraged to spend a lot of time on this project, researching on the web and trying to put together everything you have learned. All the questions you are required to answer as part of this project, though machine-graded, provide you an opportunity to learn about businesses and the critical relation between that understanding and the art and science of valuation.