Courses

    This course begins with an introduction to modern finance theory to provide tools for understanding valuation problems. Students will learn about discounted present value, valuation of risk, portfolio theory, capital asset pricing model, efficient markets hypothesis, and options theory. The course then moves to a legal analysis of the rights and claims that attach to various securities, beginning with contractual rights of bondholders and convertible security holders. It then considers the contractual and extracontractual rights of preferred shareholders, and finally takes up the dividend and control rights of common stockholders, and fiduciary obligations of directors toward common stock holders. The course ends with an examination of corporate finance, aspects of mergers and acquisitions, new types of financial securities and their legal implications. Attention is paid throughout the course to the conflicts that arise between security holders, and the implications of the allocation of control rights among security holders for corporate governance, and for public policy.