Course Aims:
To examine and critically assess key issues in corporate finance law.
Main Learning Outcomes: At the end of the course the student should obtain:
- An understanding of how the company operates as a vehicle for raising finance and for managing financial risk;
- An understanding of the principal sources of equity and debt finance and the theoretical and conceptual issues associated with each type of funding;
- An understanding of the markets in which this business takes place;
- An understanding of the key issues in financial strategy and financial innovation.
Subject-Specific Skills and Concepts
Students will be able to:
- Differentiate between and use appropriate primary and secondary sources and identify and retrieve up-to-date legal information using paper and electronic sources;
- Use recognised methods of citation;
- Use sources to support arguments and conclusions;
- Recognise, analyse, and rank arguments and evidence in terms of relevance and importance by managing volume of legal sources and select key material to construct written or oral answers to a legal problem;
- Identify the legal problem from information provided;
- Address problems by reference to relevant material;
- Bring together, integrate, compare and synthesise information and materials from a variety of different sources, which explore policy and doctrinal issues;
- Be able to find in paper form legislative and case law materials in the Law Library;
- Present arguments for and against propositions;
- Be aware that arguments require to be supported by evidence, in order to meet legal requirements of proof by showing awareness of the need for evidence to support arguments;
- Apply knowledge and analysis creatively to complex situations in order to provide arguable solutions to concrete problems by presenting a range of viable options from a set of facts and law;
- Think critically and make critical judgements on the relative and absolute merits of particular arguments and solutions and make choices as to the most preferable;
- Communicate orally and in writing (and electronically where appropriate) using English language by creating work in a permanent format that is understandable by the intended audience (through submission of exam answers, essays, samples thereof and participating in tutorial discussion);
- Communicate in plain English, with legal terminology only as needed;
- Display informed knowledge and understanding of the social, economic, moral and ethical contexts in which law operates by demonstrating legal knowledge in association with related policy, underlying social conditions, professional ethical issues and moral issues.
Key Skills (Transferable)
- Communicate orally and in writing;
- Ability to work effectively in small groups to contribute to the group’s task;
- Ability to work independently, to organise and manage time, stress and effort in performance of tasks;
- Problem solving skills;
- Critical analysis;
- Logical argument;
- An ability to synthesise and organise complex materials and arguments;
- With limited guidance act independently, and where appropriate as part of team, in planning and undertaking tasks;
- Conduct formal and informal oral presentations;
- Make appropriate use of technology in research, writing and oral presentations;
- Reflect on own learning and to seek and make use of feedback.
Content:
- The regulatory framework for corporate finance.
- Control of the use of the corporate form as a vehicle for raising finance and managing financial risk.
- Legal capital: share issues, payment for shares, rights attaching to shares, types of shares, classes of shares, maintenance and reduction of capital; dividends
- Debt finance: unsecured lending and the use of covenants; secured debt, types of security.
- Capital markets finance: public offers of equity securities; official listing (London Stock Exchange);
