FINANCE FOR NON-FINANCIALS (B3MIN1051)
Note: the official course manual is available on https://eur.sqill.it/reports/0793a30c-f5b849ce-aaa3-254eeca8df13
Course load:
Block:
Coordinator:
Teaching staff:
Course structure:
Mandatory attendance:
Course schedule:
Examination:
420 hours / 15 EC
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Dr. Guosong Xu
Dr. Guosong Xu
Lectures and workshops
All RSM minors have mandatory attendance
See timetables.eur.nl
Final written open-book exam (60%), group assignments (40%)
Contact information & availability
Dr. Guosong Xu
xu@rsm.nl (primary contact)
Office: Mandeville Building, T8-50 (RSVP)
URL: https://www.rsm.nl/people/guosong-xu/
Course overview
This course provides an introduction to finance for students with a non-business background. The themes we deal
with in this course are particularly relevant for business decision-making in areas such as how to evaluate the financial health of companies, whether or not to invest in a project, and how to deal with risks. We ultimately aim to
build intuition in finance and as such, we will also analogize to other domains, such as personal finance. The
course is both theoretical and applied, and builds on lectures, discussions, take-home exercises, and case studies.
Learning goals
After following this course, the student should:
• Understand and extract financial information from financial statements
• Perform financial statement analysis to evaluate the financial health of a company
• Understand the concept of time value of money
• Understand investment decision rules and evaluate whether one should carry out a project
• Understand the basic features of financial securities, such as returns and risks of stocks, and how to select
an investment opportunity
• Understand how to finance business
Course information
Pre-requisites
• Before taking this course, it is strongly recommended that students have a good knowledge of quantitative
methods (VWO-level mathematics with at least an A-level or 7.0 from secondary school) and basic statistics (understanding concepts such as mean, standard deviation, variance, correlation, covariance, regressions).
• Students should have (or are willing to acquire) necessary Excel skills to succeed in this course.
Attendance requirement
All RSM minors have mandatory attendance. This means the student should attend on-campus lectures on time.
Being late will count as having missed 0.5 lecture. Students are allowed to miss two compulsory lectures (with or
without reason). Missing more than two lectures will result in failing the course.
Course structure
Teaching will take place on campus by default. Any exceptions will be timely announced. Besides lectures, online
videos will be available for self-study and review at home. Note that online videos are not a substitute for on-campus lectures. Therefore, students should strictly abide by the attendance requirement.
Feedback form will be provided on Canvas throughout the course. Students can submit their feedbacks / wishes /
questions via these forms throughout the course.
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Weekly schedule
The course is organized into four modules: Module 1: Analyzing Financial Health of Firms; Module 2: Basics of Finance; Module 3: Investment Decisions; Module 4: Firm Value. For a detailed schedule, see the appendix at the
end of this file.
Overall structure of the course
Literature
• Recommended textbook: Fundamentals of Corporate Finance, by Hillier, D., I. Clacher, S. Ross, R. Westerfield, and B. Jordan, 2017, 3rd Edition (or 4th Edition) McGraw-Hill (ISBN 9780077178239).
• Journal and newspaper articles provided through Canvas.
Assignment, assessment and examinations*
• Final exam (60% of final grade): Individual written test (on-campus). The exam will be based on Microsoft
Excel and will take place in PC rooms.
• Group assignments (40%): Two group assignments that collectively account for 40% of the final grade. Each
group assignment accounts for 20% of the final grade. Students have to submit through Canvas. Group assignments may involve group presentations. Late submissions will receive a score of zero. All group members
will receive the same grade. Each member must make a substantial contribution to each part of the assignment. It is not acceptable, e.g., to divide the assignments amongst the team members.
• Take-home exercises: In most weeks, there will be individual exercises. These complementary exercises are
not graded and students do not have to submit them. Workshops will be organized to answer questions about
the exercises in the following week. It is advised to complete the exercises with Excel.
* Students are expected to take individual tests to the best of their own ability, without seeking or accepting the help
of others or use resources that are not explicitly allowed nor to help others. In teamwork, students are not allowed to
collaborate outside their own group. Please be aware that violation of these terms will be considered as fraud.
Examination dates
Please check timetables.eur.nl for the date and time of the written exam(s).
Written final test = 1.5 hours on ANS (with Excel)
Re-sit written test = 1.5 hours on ANS (with Excel)
Examination registration
The students will be registered by BSc Programme Management for the course and regular exams in Osiris. After
the course registration in Osiris, students are automatically registered for the course channel in SIN-Online and
Canvas.
Registration re-sit via OSIRIS-student
Students who have not passed the course after the regular exam are automatically registered for the re-sit of the written test
by BSc Programme Management.
Please note: if you already passed the course and you want to use the re-sit for a higher grade, then you do have to register
for the re-sit yourself. Please send an email to BSc Programme Management via bsc.pm@rsm.nl. The registration period is
26 to 5 working days before the date of the re-sit. If you have done both the regular exam and the re-sit, the highest of the
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two results counts. Please make sure to register before the deadline; after the deadline it is not possible to register for the
resit.
If you have failed your minor or if you have to re-sit the examination in July, we advise you to enroll once again for the minor
of your choice in May of the subsequent year. You will not, however, be given priority for the minor that you have already
followed. If you pass your re-sit and therefore pass your minor, you must deregister for the new minor. Please contact RSM
BSc Programme management via bsc.pm@rsm.nl if you require further information.
Students retaking the course
Students retaking the course must complete all assessment parts as they are required for the current academic
year. The examination for re-takers is thus based on the content and conditions that apply to the current academic
year (2023-2024).
Validity of partial grades
Grades will only be valid during the current academic year (2023-2024).
Examination perusal
The date and time of the perusal of the test will be announced when the grades are published.
Assessment plan
Finance for non-financials – B3MIN1051
Educational goals per course
After following this course, the student is able to:
Final Exam
Understand and extract information from financial statements
Perform financial statement analysis to assess financial health of firms
Understand the concept of time value of money
Valuate assets by means of net present value, IRR, and payback periods
Select amongst investment opportunities by comparing risk and return
Relate investment decisions to capital budgeting and capital structure
Weighting
Minimum grade required
Opportunity to resit within the academic year
×
×
×
×
×
×
60%
4.5
Yes
Open-ended
questions
Individual
Form of examination
Group/Individual assessment
Assessment format
Group assignments
×
×
×
×
×
40%
No
Total
×
×
×
×
×
×
100%
Open-book
Group
Pass of the course: In order to pass the course a grade of 5.5 is required for the final grade. In order to obtain a
grade, students need to score at least 4.5 on the final exam. There is a resit opportunity for the written exam but
not for the assignments.
If you miss mandatory course components due to short-term personal circumstances (Covid, funeral, wedding,
student associations activities, holidays, work etc.), please contact the course coordinator. If you experience longterm personal circumstances which affect your study for a longer period (chronic illness, serious first-degree
family circumstances, top sport status, etc.), please contact the student adviser to discuss your study planning &
progress. For the availability and contact information of the Study Advisers, go to this contact page.
Appendix: Course schedule
Note: The schedule may be adjusted. A “lecture” refers to a lecture-week.
Module 1: Financial Health of Companies
Lecture 1: Financial Accounting
• Textbook chapters: 3.1, also read chapters 1 & 2 (recommended)
Lecture 2: Financial Statement Analysis
• Textbook chapters: 3.2 & 3.3 & 3.4
• Deadline for submitting the 1st group assignment
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Module 2: Basics of Finance
Lecture 3: Time Value of Money
• Textbook chapters: 4 & 5
Lecture 4: Personal Finance
• Textbook chapters: 4 & 5
Module 3: Investment Decisions
Lecture 5: Investment Decision Rules
• Textbook chapters: 8
• Required reading: How do CFOs make capital budgeting and capital structure decisions? Graham and
Harvey (2002)
• Required reading: The Social Responsibility of Business is to Increase its Profits, Friedman (1970)
Lecture 6: Capital Budgeting
• Textbook chapters: 9
Module 4: Firm Value
Lecture 7: Risk, Return, and CAPM
• Textbook chapters: 11 &12 & 13
• Required reading: A New Model for Market?, Financial Times
• Recommended reading: How Do Investors Compute the Discount Rate? They Use the CAPM. Berk
and van Binsbergen (2016)
Lecture 8: Capital Structure
• Textbook chapters: 13 & 15
• Recommended reading: News article “Jawbone debunks Modigliani-Miller. When’s the crash?” in Financial Times
• Deadline for submitting the 2nd group assignment
Lecture 9: Case study, student presentations, and wrap-up
Lecture 10: Final exam
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