APPLIES TO ACADEMIC YEAR 2014/2015

ELE 3750 Financial analysis and valuation

Responsible for the course
Sverre Dyrnes, Ignacio Garcia de Olalla Lopez

Department
Department of Accounting - Auditing and Law

Term
According to study plan

ECTS Credits
7,5

Language of instruction
Norwegian and english

Introduction
All corporations have to prepare annual financial statements and companies listed at a stock exchange have to prepare company annual reports which contain more comprehensive information. The main purpose of the company annual report is to provide shareholders and potential investors with decision-relevant information so that they can make up their mind about

(i) the value creation during the financial year and the financial situation at the end of the financial year (the control motive)
(ii) likely future cash flows generation capabilities (valuation and credit analysis motives)

However, there are many conditions that have an impact on the numbers as well as the information that are presented in the corporate annual report. Many of these conditions might cause the financial statements to present an incomplete picture of the company's underlying economice reality. The chance that financial information might be sourrounded by "noise" makes it even more important to critically assess the quality of financial imformation befor used.

Valuations are commonly made in relation to transactons as mergers, acquisitions, demergers, transitions to next generation, IPO's, in relation to asset pricing or in relation to supervision of the value creation in companies.

Both credit analysis and valuations are based on prognosis for the company's likely future economic development and financial condition (prognosis for future income statement items, balance sheet items and cash flow items). Such prognosis are usually, to a great extent, based on historic profit figures (time series analysis) and on other economic information about the company.

Learning outcome
Acquired Knowledge
After completing the course, students will have:

• Acquiree an understanding of the financial information that a company produces in an annual report, which is relevant for the analysis and valuation of the company.
• Knowledge of what drives a company's development and a better understanding of accounting from a user perspective

• To extract relevant information from the annual report for the purpose of analyzing a company's economic development and / or valuing a company's stock.
• Make an opinion of the extent to which the company's financial information gives a good indication of the underlying economic reality of the company.

1. The Coporate Annual Report - Content and Relevance
2. Accounting Standards
3. Main Accounting Issues important for Financial statement Analysis
4. Accounting Quality Analysis
5. Analysis of Historic Financial Results
6. Forecasts
7. Valuation