Finance

Advanced Corporate Finance

This course will examine issues in corporate finance and corporate governance that are of particular interest to external fund providers. Corporate finance decisions will be studied with a focus on the external sources of funding: implications for stockholders, bondholders, banks. Both funding provided through financial markets and private funding will be considered.

Empirical Research in Finance

In this course, we introduce some popular empirical research methods and how they can be used to solve both academic and practical questions. It is divided into two big parts. The first part introduces theory and learns how to use software to apply these theoretical concepts. The second part exposes the students to the academic and practitioner's literature, in which these techniques are used to solve a variety of financial issues.

Global Financial Markets

This course is intended as a broad introduction to global financial markets. We discuss the instruments traded in the money and capital markets, the institutions that support and frame the markets, the trading mechanisms and the regulator structure. GFM 1 (taught in sem 1) is intended to be primarily descriptive and conceptual although we also aim to introduce some analytical elements such as the principles of bond pricing, the estimation of the term structure and the measurement of interest rate risk. In GFM 2 (taught in sem 2) we introduce various types of derivatives and we focus mainly on linear derivative products: forwards, futures and swaps.

Advanced Investment Analysis

This course is about investment analysis and management. Since the seminal publication of Harry Markowitz’s optimal portfolio selection model in the 1950s (Markowitz, 1952, 1959) investment management has become increasingly quantitative. Of course, the abundance of the available data has contributed to this evolution. The purpose of this course is to provide an introduction to some of these quantitative management techniques. In doing so, we will stress practical implementation issues, without sacrificing academic rigor, however. We do not stress econometric and statistical techniques, although we do discuss them when useful.

Financial Risk Management

This course starts with pricing and hedging by using forward and futures. The next topic discussed is option pricing, both in discrete and in continuous time. Special attention will be given to risk-neutral valuation, the treatment of dividends, and the Greeks. Numerical techniques such as binomial tree and Monte Carlo simulation will be explored and implemented. Exotic options are covered together with financial engineering using numerical procedures.

Electives

We announce our electives at the beginning of each academic year, based on the current trends we see in the market.

Contemporary Issues in Global Finance (incl. International Experience Study Trip)

Though the class is titled ‘Contemporary Issues in Global Finance’, history often repeats itself. The details might be different, but common themes are repeated. We will use a combination of lectures, guest speakers, video documentaries, case studies, group discussions, class discussions, alumni career events, and group presentations in order to work through a variety of contemporary financial and economic issues.

Raising Capital and Investing in Global Financial Markets

This course is presented as a workshop and uses a case study approach to address the very broad topic of raising capital and investing in global markets. The approach is an active rather than passive investment approach, concentrating on investing in quoted companies globally and the cost of equity. We look at the value drivers of well-known companies such as Amazon, Apple, Google and others to explore how the market sets prices and required rates of return. Factors influencing IPO pricing and the impact on market prices of liquidity, speculators and indexed funds are addressed.

Computer Applications in Finance

This course aims at acquiring proficiency in Excel and VBA to implement the financial models that will be studied throughout the year. For this course, the participants work together with a company or an NGO to solve a real-life financial problem with the Excel skills they acquire during the course.

Note: This curriculum is subject to change.

Our Master in Finance program includes a mandatory online pre-master course that you are required to take before you start this program at AMS. The goal of the pre-master course is to give you a chance to refresh certain knowledge and to make sure the whole group starts the year at the same level. The course also offers you an insight into your strengths and weaknesses, and allows faculty to give personal support and feedback.

The course represents 2 full weeks of classes and consists of 90 sessions including 77 videos and more than 100 exercises. Certain modules can only be unlocked by passing a test, this way you can easily pass modules you already master and focus more on new course material. The online pre-master course is self-paced and concludes with an in-person and closed-book exam at our campus at the start of the academic year.

Next to being an integral part of our Master in Finance program, our online pre-master course is also an excellent preparation for CFA level 1 as it discusses 90% of the quantitative skills required by the CFA institute. This is also the reason why students who have already passed CFA level 1 are exempt from taking the pre-master course.

The finance industry is getting more and more data driven. Especially for investment analysis and risk management, your job as a financial analyst can hardly be done without proper data science skills. However, there is a steep learning curve to get acquainted with data science tools such as R. To make sure you can quickly adapt to problem solving with proper tools, we offer a data science boot camp, after the pre-master course.

Topics include:

→ Basics of programming in R

→ Basics of RMarkdown

→ Financial applications with selected topics from the pre-master course

The bootcamp is partly self-paced, partly scheduled with online interactive sessions. One week before classes of the Master in Finance start, you will work on a small group project. During this data science bootcamp, you will develop the data science skills required by CFA Institute.

Your personal development is a core element in the journey you will undertake during your year at Antwerp Management School.

At AMS, we look beyond the mere transfer of technical knowledge. As our mission statement explicitly mentions, we also want to stimulate your personal development. With the Global Leadership Skills track, we challenge and coach you to become more aware of who you are, how you cooperate with others, and what kind of career you want to pursue. We do this by building upon the three mission pillars of Antwerp Management School:

• Self Awareness: leads to stronger cooperation with others.
• Global Perspective: leads to a developed global mindset, allowing you to find better solutions to problems and complex issues.
• Societal Consciousness: leads to sustainability in essential economic processes, a fundamental value in business.

Throughout this journey, we will focus on these three levels of learning by working with a mixture of exercises, self-analysis instruments, moments of reflection, individual follow-up, collective sessions and peer coaching. We will offer you relevant frameworks to support you in understanding your strengths and needs, and defining your areas for growth.

Global Leadership Skills development is more than a ‘nice to have’, it is a basic prerequisite for career success and recruiters will be assessing this when you apply for a job. Today’s employers are looking for an impressive set of soft skills when selecting young graduates. These include: self-awareness, the ability to work collaboratively with others, leadership skills, the capacity to adapt to new situations and to develop new skills, openness to and respect for different perspectives, multicultural awareness, and long-term and system thinking, to name just a few. This course aims to support you in developing these skills and in finding a match between who you are and what the world of employment needs; between your career ambitions and what employers are looking for.

Social consciousness and responsibility are embedded in our program. Every year we collaborate with a non-profit organization (NGO) or an industry partner to help improve their financial management efficiency by providing a tailor-made Excel-based solution that is concise, user-friendly, robust and flexible.

The project will prepare you to become a young financial professional with both hard computer skills and soft communication skills. Unlike a university assignment where students get a step-by-step instruction on what to do, our CAF project partner will only propose a general question. It is the responsibility of our students to come up with a solution and convince our partner it is the way to go, just like in real business life. As a student, you will have regular contact moments with our partner to make sure you are on the right track. At the end of the project, you will present your solutions to our partner (and external jury members).

For your master project, you are asked to write a research oriented paper in a finance domain of your choice, usually in groups of 3 students. This master project will demonstrate your critical thinking ability and analytical skills to solve a practical relevant yet academically challenging research question.

Watch the video pitches of our recent graduates:

Thanks to an international collaborative agreement between Antwerp Management School (AMS) and the well-ranked Fordham University’s Gabelli School of Business (GSB) in New York, students and recent graduates of the Master in Finance are offered a dual-degree opportunity: you can complement your education and obtain a second degree in only 3 weeks by joining Fordham University’s Gabelli School of Business (GBS) Master of Science in Global Finance (MSGF).

Upon successfully graduating from AMS and after being admitted to this MSGF collaborative program, you will join a group of international top students in New York for 3 weeks during the month of July. The program offers a combination of in-house lectures at Gabelli School of Business’ Manhattan campus, company visits to some of New York’s finest financial institutions, and trips that allow you to experience New York City’s arts, culture and history.

After attending this program:

• you have a strong background in analytical and practical decision making;
• you have a set of skills ranging from corporate finance decisions to portfolio management and derivative pricing;
• you have a thorough knowledge of the theory and concepts of all major areas of financial management and their strategic implementation.