Faculty
Aleksandra Gregoric, Steen Thomsen

Course Coordinator
Niels Christian Nielsen

Completed bachelor degree in business

This course extends the basic course in corporate finance to include the control and direction of companies (corporate governance). Corporate governance deals with financial incentive and information problems and their solution by ownership structure, boards, compensation, law, capital structure and other mechanisms.

The course extends agency theory as an analytical framework for analyzing corporate governance issues. For example shareholder value maximization can be implemented through contestable ownership and removal of takeover barriers, independent boards, stock option programs and legal protection of minority investors. Corporate governance in turn has implications for financial objectives, for example risk preferences at attention to stakeholders. The course will cover issues like corporate objectives, the costs and benefits of stock option programs, minority investor protection, board control, leverage as a governance mechanism, private equity funds and the ownership role of institutional investors.

Lectures and case discussions.