Advanced Valuation and Strategy - M&A, Private Equity, and Venture Capital

This is a fantastic course that provides you with the all the necessary knowledge and tools to perform a valuation of any given company. Apart from that, this course will provide you with the understanding of real options and how they can be applied in valuation analysis. Professor Han Smit of Erasmus University Rotterdam, the Netherlands developed a unique approach to company valuation: while the majority of textbooks on this topic focuses only on DCF models, this course is the complete opposite as it. It combines all latest scientific knowledge on the subject of corporate finance, strategy and real options and take the best tools out of those discipline to connect them in one robust framework that will allow you to to perform valuation analysis of any given company and will make you to stand apart from your peers who blindly employ DCF analysis exclusively without considering assumptions that are necessary to perform valuation accurately. Well, now you have unique opportunity to acquire the best knowledge and tools of company valuation, that, apart from making you more knowledgeable in the field of finance, will make you better decision-maker, be it when it comes to investment or any other complicated decision-making process you will have to make. Due to the depth and attention to details that professor Smit makes when explaining the concepts of valuation analysis, perhaps the strongest point of Advanced Valuation and Strategy course is that you can start straight applying tools and technique you are about to learn from this course. The take away here: take this course, prepare to grasp the complex fundamentals of valuation analysis as well as prepare to learn techniques that real-word Finance professionals employ and you will acquire a comprehensive understanding of valuation analysis from a practitioner point of view.

In my opinion, this course should be better organised in terms of the information provided during webcasts/readings and the required knowledge to answer que quizzes (it does not always match). It was frustrating how long it took me to complete this course, since I had to do a lot of extra research in order to complete the tasks. Besides the missing information, there are also some minor errors in the material provided that end up being time consuming before you realise what's going on. Extra research is not a bad thing at all, but it should be considered when someone estimates how long it will take to complete the course (it took me much more than 5 hours a week). Maybe this course is too ambicious in terms of what it covers in five weeks, or maybe it is just my lack of experience in the topic, but that's why I decided to take the course in first place.

Great topic, great content, great explanatory animations!

This course was fun to follow and actually taught me new insights! (eventhough I already had a lot of different finance courses). Would definitely recommend

Excellent course that has practical implementation in daily decision making. I assumed an overlap with the CFA syllabus, however this was more advanced in that it included option game valuation which in an insightful addition to strategic net present value. Thoroughly enjoyed the content and engagement on the discussion forums.

Very advanced course in corporate valuation and in corporate strategy. Having a good understanding of basic corporate finance topics is recommended.

What an excellent course! I like the way how difficult topics are explained through the awesome animated videos. The course is very challenging and of a very high level. I have learned a lot. Thank you for this wonderful course!

Great course for those that work and want a solid overview of important valuation material. More advanced content than in other courses and very helpful instructors!

A must for all those engaged in Corporate Finance

perfect course

The course offers both excellent theoretical framework and quantitative rigor. Unconventional perspective shared by the professor you would not typically find in M&A textbooks out there.

This course is insane!!! Help me get such a deep understanding about Corporate Strategy and its correlation with competitors in the market. It emphasizes on valuing assets/ company by using variety of methods and simultaneously illustrates its impact on management's decision. Very straightforward and highly recommended!