21 - 29 of 29 results for: ACCT

This course provides a comprehensive introduction to the concepts and tools of managerial accounting. The first part of the course demonstrates how management can rely on internal accounting information to measure and manage the profitability of individual products and customers. As part of that analysis, we examine alternative costing methods and illustrate how the resulting cost information can be used for decision making. The second part of the course focuses on the role of the internal accounting system in evaluating managerial performance and in coordinating the activities among business units within the firm. Our focus here will be on performance metrics that enable effective decentralization by aligning the objectives of individual business units with the overall corporate goals.

This course aims to develop students' understanding of the relation between accounting numbers and underlying economic activity, and to develop students' ability to evaluate the quality of reported accounting numbers. The course will then focus on how to use them in decision contexts including evaluating profitability, forecasting future earnings and cash flows, selecting an appropriate financial reporting strategy, and assessing risk. Accordingly, the course will focus on several factors essential to this goal. These include understanding (1) the business environment a firm operates in, its contracting practices and their implications for what accounting principles are applied and what judgments are required; (2) the process that generates accounting numbers and its implications for the quality of those numbers for decision purposes; (3) approaches for assessing the sustainability and growth of a firm's revenues and earnings using financial statement information; and (4) approaches to evaluate earnings quality, the risk of earnings restatements, liquidity and solvency. This course should be of value to students who will be in senior positions within corporations and will determine financial reporting policies, as well as those outside corporations who will make investment or other decisions at least partially based on financial statement information.

This Bass seminar is designed to develop students' ability to interpret and use financial accounting information in credit and equity valuation contexts. The course will focus on valuing the securities of companies undergoing significant changes as a result of litigation, restructuring, regulatory changes, mergers, spin-offs or significant industry shifts. Throughout the course, students will (1) enrich their understanding of how alternative economic, legal, political and regulatory outcomes affect the value of various components of a company's capital structure and (2) develop their ability to apply financial statement analysis to assess the likelihood and valuation implications of the events of interest. nnnEvent-driven investing follows the life cycle of companies as they revamp their corporate structures in response to economic and regulatory environments. For example, in rising economic periods companies may undertake acquisitions or spin off divisions to enhance shareholder value. During adverse environments, bankruptcy and reorganizations often reshape the capital structure by offering opportunities to create value through the restructuring process. During economic transitions, debt and equity investors may make significantly different assessments of the quality of a company's earnings, its assets, and its likelihood to meet its debt obligations. To assess the probability of corporate events, investors must make judgments about the quality of a company's earnings and assets and understand how accounting policies may influence management's representations. Investors must also interpret how accounting policies function at various points in a firm's life cycle, influencing the quality of earnings for firms differently in different economic environments. nnnIn the first half of the course, we will develop the course framework, and apply it to illustrative cases. Companies featured in the cases include Tyco, AIG, CIT, Fannie Mae, Tesla and Pharmasset and Gilead. Students will interpret information from companies' public financial disclosures to assess the likelihood of different events or outcomes. The course will also feature readings on current accounting standards, articles from the popular press, publicly available financial statement information, and guest speakers with in-depth knowledge of investing strategies vis a vis the case companies. nnnThe latter part of the course will be devoted to project work, with students working in teams to develop an event-driven investing strategy. The aim is to allow students to conduct independent research on a company, industry, economic context, or financial reporting environment of particular interest. Students will develop their investment idea, articulate their sense of the possible outcomes for the components of the firm's capital structure, and explain how they have assessed the likelihood and valuation consequences of those outcomes. At the conclusion of the course, students will present their strategies to the class and a panel of expert judges.

The course is designed to introduce students to the unique institutional, corporate governance and transparency issues facing managers and investors in emerging economies, and the impact these issues have on assessment of firm performance and value. The goal of the class is to gain an understanding of how country-level institutional forces interact with firm-level factors to shape firm value in these countries, how to interpret published financial reports in this environment to identify the source of firm-level value creation, and to use your assessment of the firm to identify the primitive sources of the firm's risks and opportunities. Topics covered will include an assessment of related party transactions, importance of political factors and social networks, governance conflicts, and the risk of expropriation. Students will be expected to: (1) make one presentation (most likely as a part of a two-to-three person group) that explores the valuation and value drivers of a specific emerging market firm and (2) attend all four classes. Grades will be on a pass/fail basis.nnnProfessor Piotroski teaches the Accounting-based Valuation and Valuation in Emerging Economies courses at the GSB.nn