Sample syllabus: 2-day finance bootcamp for undergraduate students
Topic 1: Introduction
- Introduction and overview of the course
- Introduction to investment banking and corporate finance careers
- What is an investment bank?
- What is the structure of an investment bank?
- What do investment banks do?
- What are the types of groups within the investment banking division?
- What is the hierarchy within the investment bank?
- What kind of work do investment bankers do?
- Overview of private equity, venture capital and hedge funds
Topic 2: Valuation
- Introduction to valuation
- The importance of valuation
- Understanding enterprise value and equity value
- Valuation method 1: Comparable Company Analysis
- Selecting comparable companies
- Spreading comparable companies
- Analyzing the valuation multiples
- Concluding and understanding value
- Valuation method 2: Precedent Transactions Analysis
- Selecting comparable transactions
- Spreading comparable transactions
- Concluding value
- Valuation method 3: Discounted Cash Flow (DCF) analysis
- Understanding unlevered free cash flow
- Forecasting free cash flow
- Forecasting terminal value
- Present value and discounting
- Understanding stub periods
- Performing sensitivity analysis
- Weighted Average Cost of Capital (WACC)
- Using the CAPM to estimate the cost of equity
- Estimating the cost of debt
- Understanding and analyzing WACC
- Concluding valuation
- Aggregating the three methodologies
- Concluding value
Topic 3: Building an Integrated Cash Flow Model
- Introduction to financial modeling
- Understanding the links between the financial statements
- Understanding circularity
- Setting up and formatting the model
- Selecting model drivers and assumptions
- Modeling and projecting the financial statements
- Projecting the income statement
- Projecting the balance sheet
- Projecting the cash flow statement
- Creating the debt and interest schedule
- Revolver modeling
- Analyzing and concluding the model
- Analyzing the output
- Stress testing the model
- Fixing modeling errors
- Using the model to create a Discounted Cash Flow (DCF) Analysis
Topic 4: Recruiting, Interviewing and Conclusion of the Course
- Recruiting and Job Search
- What are investment banks looking for?
- Recruiting from a non-target
- Resumes and cover letters
- Interviewing
- General interviewing overview
- Qualitative/fit questions
- Technical questions
- After the interview
- Following up
- Selecting a firm
- Selecting a group
- Anything you ever wanted to know about investment banking
- Conclusion of the course