MSc Financial Management

Course units

Eleven units, each with 150 hours of study over about five months. Credits are as listed on the University's main programme page, which gives none for Data Analysis and Statistical Techniques.

• Accounting Decision Making15 credits

  Accounting conventions and techniques, and management and financial accounting. The University's page adds strategic management accounting tools across an organisation's life cycle, the relationship between costs, volumes and profits, management control systems, and the accounting conventions for cash, profit and equity behind the cash budget, income statement and statement of financial position.

• Financial Decision Making15 credits

  The time value of money and asset valuation, and the cost of capital and capital budgeting. The University's page also lists valuing securities, financing a firm, risk and return, and share price behaviour and informational efficiency, taught as a conceptual foundation for the later finance units.

• Corporate Finance15 credits

  Estimating the cost of capital, advanced capital budgeting, and equity and debt capital. Built around the three policies a firm's financial managers set, investment, financing and payout, and how they affect firm value, with the practical tools practitioners use.

• Global Financial Markets15 credits

  The global financial system; banking and financial regulation, investment banking and private equity; and risk management and hedging strategies. The University's main programme page names this unit Global Financial Markets and Institutions. It covers the part financial institutions play, the equity, money and bond markets and the products traded in them, the causes of the global financial crisis and the regulation of markets, using real-world case studies.

• Data Analysis and Statistical Techniques

  Basic econometric tools, forming empirical hypotheses, and interpreting statistical and econometric results. Centred on linear regression: estimating relationships between financial variables such as stock returns and exchange rates, and forming, testing and interpreting hypotheses.

• Financial Statement Analysis15 credits

  Contemporary financial reporting, interpreting and assessing a firm's performance, and credit and debt analysis. The University's page describes five stages: strategic analysis, financial analysis including cash flow, accounting analysis to undo earnings management and accounting distortions, credit analysis to predict financial distress, and the limits of quantitative analysis, including integrated reporting.

• International Financial Management15 credits

  Financial decision-making in multinational companies, foreign direct investment decisions, and political risk. Covers foreign exchange markets and parity conditions, the cost of capital for foreign direct investment, translation, transaction and economic exposure and hedging with forwards, money markets, futures, options and swaps, and measuring and managing political risk.

• Quantitative Methods for Financial Management15 credits

  Statistical tools for finance practitioners, analysing and forecasting time-series data, and empirical interactions. Builds on Data Analysis and Statistical Techniques with time-series analysis and forecasting, trends, dynamic interactions between variables such as the stock market and the wider economy, and simple volatility models.

• Venture Capital and Private Equity15 credits

  How private equity investors raise funds, and how capital is invested and allocated across opportunities. Practitioner-led: raising funds, finding and valuing investments, managing them and exiting through a sale or a flotation, with case studies in which students act as investors, company managers and advisers.

• Business Models and Financial Strategy15 credits

  Evaluating alternative business models, financial decisions across a firm's life cycle, and fintech and other innovative sources of finance. Covers setting up and growing new ventures, business strategy, internal and debt financing including venture and private debt, and fintech such as peer-to-peer lending, crowdfunding and online invoice factoring.

• Group Research Project (dissertation)30 credits

  The capstone, taken as the dissertation course: working in a group, you choose a topic, plan how to collect information and data, select suitable methods of analysis, and present the results, linking theory to real financial problems. The University's page describes an 8,000 to 10,000-word group report, with a supervisor chosen from a pool and a topic agreed with them.

Workshops for Dubai-based students

Students based in the Middle East, North Africa and India attend their workshops in Dubai, as two 3-day workshops at a time, twice a year. March start: May and September in year one, May and November in year two. September start: September and May in year one, November and May in year two. Timings are from the University's main programme page.