BFC3140: Advanced Corporate Finance

Really really loved this unit. Found it much more straightforward compared to corporate finance 1, so definitely recommended as a unit to add to your finance major or even as an elective for a BCom student who did not find corp fi 1 too difficult. The topics covered are not as strenuous as corp fi 1 so you'll really enjoy it. Also, because the internal assessments are very similar to corp fi 1 in terms of structure, it should be easy to maximise your in-semester marks to not have to stress too much about the final exam. All in all, I am very glad I did this unit and would love for anyone to do it even as an elective to rest from having 3 other difficult units around you.

- 60%. Was very reasonable, with 6 questions totalling 100 marks. 1 was on leases, 1 was on capital structure, 1 was on real options, 1 was on international corporate finance and the other 2 were theory based questions covering corporate governance and mergers & acquisitions (M&As). I was not excessively pressed for time, so you should be able to get through these reasonably well. The questions did have some tricks though, which did throw me off, particularly in 1 question. Despite this, with solid study and revision of all concepts and attempting the sample exam and understanding it fully will be sufficient to get a good grade in this unit.

- 20%. Held at the Caulfield Racecourse during the lecture slot time, this consisted of multiple choice questions and short answers. It was designed to be a little bit harder than previous MSTs, which showed as the marks were usually lower than in previous years. The average mark was 30.79/40 or a little over 75%, so most of the cohort still did very well. My advice for this would be to just go over the tutorial questions with solutions, as they cover all the key points and similar questions did show up in the test + memorise & understand everything in the lecture slides.

- 10%. Very similar to online tasks covered in BFC2140: Corporate Finance 1. Each exercise was available every Sunday at 6pm and then closed the following Sunday at 10pm. Unlike corp fi 1, there is only 1 hour allowed for your 1 attempt and results are available instantly after you submit. If you follow the examples though you'll get close to or exactly 10/10 for this. The best 9/10 quizzes are counted towards your final marks, so you are allowed 1 missed attempt/ bad quiz result to not count.

1 sample exam provided with solutions

4.5 out of 5

Yes, with screen capture

The prescribed textbook is Corporate Finance, Global Edition, 4th Edition by Berk & DeMarzo. This should be replaced by the 5th edition next year, which is not as easily obtainable online as the 4th edition. However, this semester the lecture slides were sufficient as I hardly used the textbook, only as an additional reference. But all tutorial questions do come from the textbook, so it's good to have as an extra resource if you can get it.

(specify how many lectures, pracs, tutes etc. and their duration)

1 x 2hr lecture per week
1x 1hr tutorial per week

Semester 2, 2019

- Also chief examiner. Ying is an absolute legend, who is extremely passionate about talking about corporate finance. This made the unit very straightforward to understand. I watched all the lectures and attended 1 of them, and for the 1 I attended I found it to be very captivating. It's a shame that next year Ying will not be taking the subject, but I'd still recommend to do it if possible as part of a finance major/ finance degree/ finance elective.

81 HD

25% Mid-sem test; 75% exam

This unit is a notch harder than Corp Fi, but I recommend doing them consecutively as it builds upon it. The unit covers IPOs (Phil loves this), CAPM, Options, Optimal Capital Structure, International Finance, M&A and Corporate Governance. As you can see, a broad range of topics under corporate finance taught but there’s insufficient time to delve into details. You spend a week on international finance/forex and a week on M&A which is a bit of a shame as one could probably learn more about valuation and LBO models.

Also recommend doing Equities (2240) and Options (3340) alongside this unit if you can since there will be a decent amount of overlap.
This is a core finance unit so it’s compulsory. If you like 2140, you will probably enjoy this unit although it requires a greater level of maturity and knowledge of finance since you’ll be introduced to many new concepts (as opposed to learning a single in-depth concept).

Tutes were helpful so turn up if possible. The harder part of the course is at the start so make sure you gain a deep understanding of it for the mid-sem. The mid-sem questions were way tougher than the tutes; C.E said that the fail rate was so high that he didn’t even want to mention it.

I recommend getting the text as it helps with understanding and there are small nifty things that you need to pick up to do well. Tute questions are from the text but they are also available on Moodle.

tl;dr This unit is not easy, but it’s the easiest out of all 3rd-year units. Do it the semester after 2140 if possible, but do it alongside 2240/3340 if you can.

Phil G

Yes, 5 exams available with solutions (but...)

out of 5

Yes, with screen capture

Corporate Finance 2E by Berk, DeMarzo (Prescribed)

2 hour lecs + 1 hour tute per week

S1, 2014