Welcome! My name is Han Smit, I am Professor of Corporate Finance at Erasmus School of Economics. I will be your lecturer, and together with my team, Dyaran Bansraj and Nishad Matawlie, we are going to take you on a fascinating journey that may change the way you make strategic investment decisions. This executive level course consists of a series of accessible animation videos. Step by step we develop the conceptual frameworks and new valuation principles for strategic investments that are difficult to value with traditional tools. These new valuation methods can be particularly interesting for venture capitalists, private equity investors, investment bankers, CEOs, and CFOs. This executive level course is meant for those who want to be updated on the latest insights in corporate strategy and valuation techniques. You can walk through the fundamentals of the course in less than a week! If you wish to follow the student level, you can skip this week (don't worry, you won't miss out on anything)!

We show you how to apply DCF approaches and provide case applications illustrating the powerful potential of this valuation methodology. We consider historical analysis, the estimation of free cash flows, various DCF approaches, and multiples valuation. In the assignments we consider specialized topics such as the valuation of leveraged buyouts. After this module you will be familiar with DCF approaches and will be able to relate them to strategy.

This module closes the gap between traditional corporate finance and strategic planning by linking corporate strategy to the market value. We can assess the value of a company through the expanded NPV criterion, which is able to capture the value of the firm's growth options. We review various strategic paradigms that analyze the underlying sources of this growth option value, focusing on industry analysis, firms' internal resources and dynamic capabilities. After this module you will be able to recognise the strategic growth option value in the market value of a company.

This module reviews the basic concepts and valuation principles of real options. Real options theory quantifies decision making under uncertainty and stresses the importance of wait-and-see flexibility, suggesting that managers should wait until major uncertainties are resolved and the project is more clearly beneficial. Since it recognizes that investments tend to be sequentially related over time, real options analysis is particularly suitable for valuing strategies in addition to isolated projects. After this module you will be able to quantify the flexibility component of the strategic growth option value. This is an important capability when valuing high-tech companies.