Description
Instructor(s)/Supervisor(s)/Coordinator(s): Joseph D. GALLAGHERThis course examines how investment bankers, corporate executives, boards of directors, private equity firms, and institutional investors evaluate, negotiate, finance, and execute complex corporate transactions. Adopting a practitioner-oriented and case-driven approach, the course focuses on the strategic, financial, governance, and execution challenges that arise in mergers & acquisitions (M&A), leveraged buyouts (LBOs), capital raising transactions, joint ventures, SPACs, activist situations, and other transformational corporate events. Rather than treating transactions as purely financial exercises, the course emphasizes how real-world deal making occurs under conditions of uncertainty, incomplete information, changing market conditions, competitive pressure, and geopolitical risk. Students will analyze how strategic rationale, valuation, financing structure, governance considerations, negotiation dynamics and regulatory environments influence transaction outcomes. The course makes use of contemporary and historical case studies drawn from global capital markets and strategic transactions, including cross-border acquisitions, contested deals, activist campaigns, private equity transactions, technology partnerships, and frontier-technology financings. Through financial modeling exercises, transaction analyses, negotiation simulations, and boardroom-style investment committee discussions, students will develop both technical analytical skills and the strategic judgment required to assess complex corporate situations.