Managing finances requires an in-depth knowledge of investment and returns. Corporate finance, in particular, is a branch of finance that focuses on increasing shareholder value through short-term and long-term financial planning that incorporates identifying sources of funding, capital structuring, and investment decisions of the management.
Since managing the finances of a company is a crucial aspect to ensure maximum profits with minimum expenditure, it requires a clear understanding of the tools and analysis to balance risk and profitability. If you have been searching for introductory corporate finance courses, there are plenty of fish in the sea. Individuals planning a career in investment banking, private equity, corporate development, or finance can enrol for online corporate finance courses to learn multiple corporate finance roles such as return on investment, valuation of stocks and bonds, and value of assets.
TrumpLearning, in consultation with 15 experts in corporate finance, has curated the best corporate finance courses online for 2020. The list has a mix of paid and free courses online that are suitable for beginners as well as intermediate and advanced learners. All the corporate finance courses included in our list offer a corporate finance certificate online. Continue scrolling to explore what each course entails and select from the best options available online to take your corporate finance learning to the next level.
9 Best Online Corporate Finance Courses & Classes
- Introduction to Corporate Finance By Wharton School [Coursera]
- Corporate Finance Essentials By IESE Business School [Coursera]
- Corporate Finance I: Measuring and Promoting Value Creation By University of Illinois [Coursera]
- Introduction to Corporate Finance By Columbia University [edX]
- Essentials of Corporate Finance Specialization By University of Melbourne [Coursera]
- Corporate Finance and Valuation Methods Professional Certificate Examination [edX]
- Introduction to Corporate Finance [CFI]
- Corporate Finance [Harvard Extension]
- CFA® Level 1 (2020) - Complete Corporate Finance [Udemy]
The first in our list of online corporate finance courses is an introductory course on Coursera that will give you an insight into the fundamentals of finance and their application in varied fields such as personal finance, corporate decision-making, and financial intermediation. This course is one of the best corporate finance courses online offered by the prestigious University of Pennsylvania. Under this corporate finance class online, you will learn about the time value of money, cost of capital, risk and return tradeoffs, interest rates, capital budgeting, asset valuation, etc.
This corporate finance training is also a part of two professional certificate programs offered on Coursera –
Business Foundations Specialization and
Finance and Quantitative Modeling for Analysts Specialization.
This course is one of the beginner corporate finance courses that have been mentored by Michael R. Roberts who is the William H. Lawrence Professor of Finance at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania. The content of this corporate finance training is 100% online has been divided into four modules over four weeks and consists of 14 online video lectures that will take approx. seven hours to complete. Besides the on-demand videos, it also consists of nine readings and four quizzes to support your learning and to track of your progress. The four modules included in the corporate training class online are:
- Time Value of Money
- Interest Rates
- Discounted Cash Flow Analysis
- Return on Investment
This is one of the best corporate finance courses online since it has a rating of 4.6 and has already been enrolled by 139,946 students. Around 33 % of the enrolled students were able to start a new career by completing this course and 32% of the candidates also got tangible career benefits. This course also has flexible deadlines that you can adjust according to your schedule. This course offers a 7-days free trial post which you can enrol via a monthly subscription. Students can also avail of financial aid to undertake this corporate finance class online. You will earn a sharable corporate finance certificate online on completing this course.
Reviews by LL
“
The professor is very patient, he spends a lot of time making sense of the equations and the calculation process, which helps me comprehend the concepts and their application really a lot. Thank you!
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Developing a financial vocabulary is essential to be able to communicate with other financial professionals and companies as well as to grasp the latest developments in the financial sector published in the media. This understanding and knowledge can help make corporate finance professionals take the right decisions for their businesses. This course is one of the online corporate finance courses that focus on developing this vocabulary and on schooling you on the key financial issues faced by companies and investors and during their collaboration in the capital market.
This course also falls under the beginner’s category of corporate finance courses. It consists of six modules spread over seven weeks. The corporate finance training under this course has been covered in 38 videos that will take approx. 11 hours to complete. It has also been enriched by 19 readings and six quizzes that will further cement your knowledge of the financial essentials. The six modules covered in this course include:
- Risk and Return
- Correlation and Diversification
- The CAPM and the Cost of Capital
- Practicing estimating the Cost of Capital of a company
- Evaluation of an investment opportunity
- Corporate Value Creation
This course is being offered by the IESE Business School of the University of Navarra and is completely online with flexible deadlines. We have included this course in our list of best corporate finance courses online as it has a rating of 4.8 and 62,523 enrolments. Though this course can be enrolled for free, you will need to subscribe to the paid version in order to earn a sharable corporate finance certificate online. You can also apply for financial aid to undertake this corporate finance class online.
Reviews by VM
“
Being a non-finance background, this course has cleared so many basics and fundamental. Videos are very useful, instructor has tried to make all the concept very simple and easy to understood. Thanks.
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Next up in our catalog of online corporate finance courses is a course included in the
Financial Management Specialization series offered by the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. This course is also a part of the online iMBA offered by the University of Illinois and undertaking this course will count in your degree.
Under this corporate finance training, you will learn using the financial principles for measuring the success of a business and promoting true value creation. This is one of the best corporate finance courses online that will teach you how to measure a company’s health using accounting information and important financial ratios and managing the short-term and long-term liquidity requirements. You will also learn about the valuation techniques for taking decisions regarding investment and acquisition. Additionally, you will learn to incorporate risk in investment decisions using discount rates and evaluating the performance of the company based on existing investments.
This corporate finance class online has been divided into four modules comprising 62 video lectures spanned over approx. 25 hours. The four modules covered in this course are:
Module 1: The Objective of the Corporation and Analysis of Financial Ratios
Module 2: Financial Planning
Module 3: Making Investment Decisions
Module 4: Mergers and Acquisitions, Risk, and Performance Evaluation
Besides the online videos covering the above modules, this corporate finance training also consists of 17 readings and 22 quizzes to solidify your learning of the financial principles. The mentor of this course is Heitor Almeida, professor of finance, Stanley C., and Joan J. Golder Distinguished Chair in Corporate Finance at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
The course has a rating of 4.8 and currently has 20,779 enrollments. This is one of the best corporate finance courses online since 40% of the enrollees started new careers or got tangible career benefits and around 50% of the students secured a pay hike or promotion. This course is also amongst the corporate finance courses on Coursera that can be enrolled for free but will require you to subscribe to the paid version in order to receive your corporate finance certificate online.
Reviews by SS
“
I found this course to be engaging and interesting. The content was explained well. I greatly appreciate what I have learned from this course, and feel it will be helpful in my future endeavors.
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Calculating the value of any asset is an integral aspect of corporate finance. This introductory corporate finance class online, offered by Columbia University, will teach you how to calculate the value of a firm, its bonds and stocks. By undertaking this corporate finance training you will learn the time value of money, cost of capital and capital budgeting. This course will also give you practical experience in evaluating bonds, and stocks, computing the Net Present Value, and the Internal Rate of Return.
The duration of this self-paced corporate finance training is four weeks and will require you to commit 3-4 hours of effort per week. The concepts covered in this corporate finance course include:
- The Time Value of Money and Present Value
- Net Present Value and The Internal Rate of Return Rule
- Capital Budgeting
- Valuation of Bonds and Stocks
The instructor of this course is Daniel Wolfenzon, the Stefan H. Robock Professor of Finance and Economics at Columbia Business School. The course has already been enrolled by 95,142 students and counts as one of the best corporate finance courses. While the content of this course can be accessed for free, you will need to pay an additional fee to attain a verified corporate finance certificate online. The paid certificate will be an instructor-signed certificate with the institution's logo that you can add to your CV or post on your LinkedIn profile. This course is also a part of the Professional Certificate in Corporate Finance offered by Columbia University as well as serves as an introductory finance course required for first-year MBA students at Columbia Business School.
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Keeping up with the select online corporate finance courses is this intermediate Coursera specialization created in partnership between The University of Melbourne and Bank of New York Mellon. It consists of five corporate finance courses covering the essentials of corporate finance. Enrolling for this specialization will help you develop sound accounting principles and understand financial analysis and the role of global markets. You will learn about the key financial decisions faced by modern corporates and the alternative methods employed by firms to increase the value of their assets. You will also learn the alternative approaches for valuation and investment.
This five online corporate finance course series (including a capstone project) will take approx. five months to complete if you can commit three hours per week for the corporate finance class online. The corporate finance courses included in this specialization are:
This course will familiarize you with the foundations of accounting principles and financial analysis and help you understand the link between the two. You will also learn the measurement of value creation at the firm level.
The second course of this specialization will focus on how the various financial markets around the world create value and manage risks for both corporates and the stakeholders.
Under the third course of this specialization, you will learn about the key financial decisions that modern businesses come across and the alternative methods that can help augment the value of a firm’s assets.
Undertaking the fourth course of this specialization series will help you develop an understanding of the foundations of asset and investment valuation, and the alternative approaches for valuation that can be put into practice.
Under the capstone project in the last course, you will assume the role of a financial analyst to advise a private client on strategic investment in a large listed global firm.
In addition to the online video classes, these corporate finance courses also include readings and multiple graded quizzes with feedback. The instructors of this specialization are Paul Kofman, Dean, Faculty of Business and Economics, and Sean Pinder, Associate Professor, Faculty of Business and Economics. The corporate finance courses in this specialization have a rating of 4.7 and currently have 14,596 students on board.
This specialization offers a 7-day-free trial with unlimited access to the course content. You can either subscribe to the entire specialization or choose from the courses that interest you. However, subscribing to any of the courses under this specialization will automatically subscribe you to the entire series. You will earn a corporate finance certificate online for each course. You will also be awarded a specialization certificate on completing all the courses as well as the hands-on project.
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This beginner’s course is a part of the professional certificate in Corporate Finance and Valuation Methods offered by the prestigious New York Institute of Finance. Candidates who wish to earn a professional certificate from the New York Institute of Finance must first earn a verified corporate finance certificate online in the following five courses preceding this course:
Course 1: Fundamental of Financial Mathematics and Capital Budgeting
Course 2: Cost of Capital
Course 3: Discounted Cash Flow (DCF) and Other Valuation Methodologies
Course 4: Option Pricing and Applications in Capital Budgeting and Corporate Finance
Course 5: Corporate Funding Alternatives and Financing Strategies
This examination is self-paced and will require 1-2 hours to complete. The instructor of this course as well as the other online corporate finance courses in this certificate is Douglas Carroll from the New York Institute of Finance. You can enroll in this corporate finance training exam by paying a one-time fee.
If you have been scouring the internet looking for free corporate finance courses for beginners, this is the course you should go for. This course, offered by the Corporate Finance Institute, will give you an introduction to the fundamental corporate finance concepts that can help you pursue a dynamic career in investment banking, equity research, corporate development, private equity, and financial planning and analysis. This course also works as an optional prerequisite for the CFI’s FMVA® certification.
This is one of the best corporate finance courses online that will give you an insight into the career paths that you can pursue with a certificate in corporate finance as well as teach you how to prepare for an interview. The concepts covered in this course include:
- The key players in the capital market
- The capital-raising process
- Main business valuation techniques
- Types of valuation multiples
- Mergers and Acquisitions (M&A) processes
- Equity capital raising
- Debt capital raising
This course consists of video lectures followed by interactive case studies that can help you put concepts to context. The course also contains a series of tests and quizzes to keep a track of your progress and also for you to test your knowledge. Though this course has been tagged as a beginner’s course, advanced learners can also undertake this corporate finance class online to brush up on their basics.
The instructor of this course is Scott Powell, Managing Director and Chief Creative Officer at CFI. The duration of this self-paced online corporate finance training is approx. 2.5 hours and it has a rating of 4.5. While this course is available for free, if you wish to earn a corporate finance certificate online you can upgrade to CFI’s FMVA® Financial Analyst Certification bundle.
Reviews by Simi Banerjee
“
The course from CFI has helped me to effectively learn about the basics of corporate finance. The exercises has helped me keep motivated and engaging. I would definitely recommend this to my friends.
Our list of best corporate finance courses would be incomplete without a Udemy bestseller. This course is a part of a 10-course series that covers all the 10 topics for CFA® Level I. This is a comprehensive course that covers all the key aspects of corporate finance. Though this is a beginner’s course, it requires basic mathematical skills and an understanding of the time value of money concepts.
This corporate finance class online has been divided into seven sections that comprise of 37 on-demand video lectures containing illustrations and animations spanned over four hours. The main sections of this course include:
- Corporate Governance and ESG
- Capital Budgeting
- Cost of Capital
- Measures of Leverage
- Working Capital Management
Besides the on-demand videos covering the above sections, this course also includes 31 downloadable resources and six articles to support your learning. By undertaking this corporate finance class online you will learn:
- Calculating the cost of debt, cost preferred stock, and cost of equity for a firm
- Functions and responsibilities of a company’s board of directors and its committees
- Calculating the NPV, IRR, payback period, and profitability index of a capital project
- Calculating the weighted average cost of capital of a firm
- Stakeholder management, and the mechanisms to mitigate associated risks
- ESG considerations in investment analysis
- Evaluating and selecting capital projects based on NPV and IRR
- Calculating and interpreting the degree of operating leverage, the degree of financial leverage, and the degree of total leverage of a firm
- The principal-agent and other relationships in corporate governance
This course has been created by PrepNuggets which is the creator of bestselling and highly rated CFA® prep courses on Udemy. The instructor of this course is Keith Tan, a Chartered Financial Analyst. This course has a rating of 4.5 and has 4773 enrollees. You can purchase this corporate finance class online with a one-time fee that will give you full lifetime access to the course content and is also backed by a 30-days money-back guarantee. The video lectures can also be accessed on a mobile or TV. You will also be awarded a corporate finance certificate online on completion.
Reviews by Himanshu Gaikwad
“
All concepts cleared. Everything needed was there in the course. The study material is also very illustrative.
The last in our list of online corporate finance courses is a course offered by the coveted Harvard University Extension School. This course will help you develop analytical skills to make corporate investments taking financial decisions and risk analysis into consideration. This course aims to explore the different patterns of corporate finance that have structured the present global economy.
This is an intermediate course that requires students to have undertaken a course in Financial Accounting Principles or Principles of Finance, both available on Harvard Extension. The lectures of this course are conducted via web conference. Students have the liberty to either attend the classes on the scheduled meeting time or access the recorded sessions available online on-demand. The duration of this course is four months.
The topics covered in this course include:
- The concept of Present Value
- The opportunity Cost of Capital
- Discounted Cash Flow Analysis
- Valuation techniques
- Short and long-term financial management issues
- Risk and return
- Capital Asset Pricing Model
- Arbitrage Pricing Model
- Capital budgeting
- Corporate capital structure and financing decisions
- Dividend policy
- Investment and financial decisions in the international context including exchange rate/interest rate risk analysis
- Issues of corporate governance and control
We have included this course in our list of best corporate finance courses since it has a mix of assigned readings, exercises, and case studies from the textbook or external sources. These resources will help you apply the concepts to real-world business situations and problems.
The instructor of this course is
Ned Gandevani, MBA, Ph.D., and Senior Investment Specialist at WestPark Capital Investment Banking. The cost of this course is $2900. The registrations have already begun and this course currently has 41 enrollments. The deadlines for enrollment have also been mentioned on the website. Since this course falls under the Division of Continuing Education, students undertaking this corporate finance class will also earn four course credits. In order to earn Harvard’s corporate finance certificate, you will have to complete a corporate finance course, one valuation course and two electives within three years and secure at least a B grade in each course to be eligible for the certificate.
Sign Up Here
If you have been scouring the internet looking for free corporate finance courses for beginners, this is the course you should go for. This course, offered by the Corporate Finance Institute, will give you an introduction to the fundamental corporate finance concepts that can help you pursue a dynamic career in investment banking, equity research, corporate development, private equity, and financial planning and analysis. This course also works as an optional prerequisite for the CFI’s FMVA® certification.
This is one of the best corporate finance courses online that will give you an insight into the career paths that you can pursue with a certificate in corporate finance as well as teach you how to prepare for an interview. The concepts covered in this course include:
- The key players in the capital market
- The capital-raising process
- Main business valuation techniques
- Types of valuation multiples
- Mergers and Acquisitions (M&A) processes
- Equity capital raising
- Debt capital raising
This course consists of video lectures followed by interactive case studies that can help you put concepts to context. The course also contains a series of tests and quizzes to keep a track of your progress and also for you to test your knowledge. Though this course has been tagged as a beginner’s course, advanced learners can also undertake this corporate finance class online to brush up on their basics.
The instructor of this course is Scott Powell, Managing Director and Chief Creative Officer at CFI. The duration of this self-paced online corporate finance training is approx. 2.5 hours and it has a rating of 4.5. While this course is available for free, if you wish to earn a corporate finance certificate online you can upgrade to CFI’s FMVA® Financial Analyst Certification bundle.
Reviews by Simi Banerjee
“
The course from CFI has helped me to effectively learn about the basics of corporate finance. The exercises has helped me keep motivated and engaging. I would definitely recommend this to my friends.
Sign Up Here
The last in our list of online corporate finance courses is a course offered by the coveted Harvard University Extension School. This course will help you develop analytical skills to make corporate investments taking financial decisions and risk analysis into consideration. This course aims to explore the different patterns of corporate finance that have structured the present global economy.
This is an intermediate course that requires students to have undertaken a course in Financial Accounting Principles or Principles of Finance, both available on Harvard Extension. The lectures of this course are conducted via web conference. Students have the liberty to either attend the classes on the scheduled meeting time or access the recorded sessions available online on-demand. The duration of this course is four months.
The topics covered in this course include:
- The concept of Present Value
- The opportunity Cost of Capital
- Discounted Cash Flow Analysis
- Valuation techniques
- Short and long-term financial management issues
- Risk and return
- Capital Asset Pricing Model
- Arbitrage Pricing Model
- Capital budgeting
- Corporate capital structure and financing decisions
- Dividend policy
- Investment and financial decisions in the international context including exchange rate/interest rate risk analysis
- Issues of corporate governance and control
We have included this course in our list of best corporate finance courses since it has a mix of assigned readings, exercises, and case studies from the textbook or external sources. These resources will help you apply the concepts to real-world business situations and problems.
The instructor of this course is Ned Gandevani, MBA, Ph.D., and Senior Investment Specialist at WestPark Capital Investment Banking. The cost of this course is $2900. The registrations have already begun and this course currently has 41 enrollments. The deadlines for enrollment have also been mentioned on the website. Since this course falls under the Division of Continuing Education, students undertaking this corporate finance class will also earn four course credits. In order to earn Harvard’s corporate finance certificate, you will have to complete a corporate finance course, one valuation course and two electives within three years and secure at least a B grade in each course to be eligible for the certificate.
Sign Up Here
Our list of best corporate finance courses would be incomplete without a Udemy bestseller. This course is a part of a 10-course series that covers all the 10 topics for CFA® Level I. This is a comprehensive course that covers all the key aspects of corporate finance. Though this is a beginner’s course, it requires basic mathematical skills and an understanding of the time value of money concepts.
This corporate finance class online has been divided into seven sections that comprise of 37 on-demand video lectures containing illustrations and animations spanned over four hours. The main sections of this course include:
- Corporate Governance and ESG
- Capital Budgeting
- Cost of Capital
- Measures of Leverage
- Working Capital Management
Besides the on-demand videos covering the above sections, this course also includes 31 downloadable resources and six articles to support your learning. By undertaking this corporate finance class online you will learn:
- Calculating the cost of debt, cost preferred stock, and cost of equity for a firm
- Functions and responsibilities of a company’s board of directors and its committees
- Calculating the NPV, IRR, payback period, and profitability index of a capital project
- Calculating the weighted average cost of capital of a firm
- Stakeholder management, and the mechanisms to mitigate associated risks
- ESG considerations in investment analysis
- Evaluating and selecting capital projects based on NPV and IRR
- Calculating and interpreting the degree of operating leverage, the degree of financial leverage, and the degree of total leverage of a firm
- The principal-agent and other relationships in corporate governance
This course has been created by PrepNuggets which is the creator of bestselling and highly rated CFA® prep courses on Udemy. The instructor of this course is Keith Tan, a Chartered Financial Analyst. This course has a rating of 4.5 and has 4773 enrollees. You can purchase this corporate finance class online with a one-time fee that will give you full lifetime access to the course content and is also backed by a 30-days money-back guarantee. The video lectures can also be accessed on a mobile or TV. You will also be awarded a corporate finance certificate online on completion.
Reviews by Himanshu Gaikwad
“
All concepts cleared. Everything needed was there in the course. The study material is also very illustrative.
Sign Up Here
That brings us to the end of our list of online corporate finance courses. The role of a corporate finance professional or analyst is vital in deciding the financial strategies of a firm. A skilled corporate finance specialist can analyze various complex financial transactions and spot investment opportunities for the growth of a corporation. Pursuing a professional certificate or a degree in finance can open multiple career paths in the corporate finance industry. You can secure a lucrative job with investment banks, financial institutions such as JP Morgan Chase, public accounting firms, or work in a private corporation.
Some of the job roles that you can acquire with a corporate finance certification are:
However, pursuing an online course will not suffice if you wish to work for a reputed organization. Once you have completed your certification, lookout for internships (paid or free) to make your entry into the industry and then work your way around to climb up the career ladder. As an intern, you will get an idea of how financial and investment decisions are taken. Even at entry-level, you will also support these decisions through your research and analysis.
We hope that our list of online corporate finance courses will help you get the ball rolling in this direction. TrumpLearning, along with the 15 experts, has ensured to select the best of courses so that you can get a good head start by pursuing a solid introductory course in corporate finance. The entire team of TrumpLearning wishes you all the best as you embark on your journey to make an impact in the financial world. If you are already enrolled in a corporate finance course and are struggling with assignments, then we recommend EduWorldUSA for corporate finance assignment help