Chapter 1

Introduction to
Business Finance

By The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved.

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 Chapter Outline
• Corporate Finance and the Financial
Manager
• Forms of Business Organization
• The Goal of Financial Management
• The Agency Problem and Control of
the Corporation
• Financial Markets and the
Corporation
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 Corporate Finance
• Some important questions that are
answered using finance:
– What long-term investments should the
firm take on?
– Where will we get the long-term
financing to pay for the investment?
– How will we manage the everyday
financial activities of the firm?

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 Financial Manager
• Financial managers try to answer some or all
of these questions
• The top financial manager within a firm is
usually the Chief Financial Officer (CFO)
– Treasurer – oversees cash management, credit
management, capital expenditures, and financial
planning
– Controller – oversees taxes, cost accounting,
financial accounting and data processing

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 Financial Management
Decisions
• Capital budgeting
– What long-term investments or projects
should the business take on?
• Capital structure
– How should we pay for our assets?
– Should we use debt or equity?
• Working capital management
– How do we manage the day-to-day
finances of the firm?

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 Forms of Business
Organization
• Three major forms in the United States
– Sole Proprietorship
– Partnership
• General
• Limited
– Corporation
• C-Corp
• S-Corp
• Limited Liability Company

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 Sole Proprietorship
• Advantages • Disadvantages
– Easiest to start – Limited to life of
– Least regulated owner
– Single owner keeps – Equity capital
all the profits limited to owner’s
– Taxed once as personal wealth
personal income – Unlimited liability
– Difficult to sell
ownership interest

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 Partnership
• Advantages • Disadvantages
– Two or more – Unlimited liability
owners • General partnership
– More capital • Limited partnership
available – Partnership
– Relatively easy to dissolves when one
start partner dies or
– Income taxed once wishes to sell
as personal income – Difficult to transfer
ownership

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 Corporation
• Advantages • Disadvantages
– Limited liability – Separation of
– Unlimited life ownership and
– Separation of management
ownership and – Double taxation
management (income taxed at
– Transfer of the corporate rate
ownership is easy and then dividends
taxed at the
– Easier to raise
personal rate)
capital

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 Goal of Financial
Management
• What should be the goal of a corporation?
– Maximize profit?
– Minimize costs?
– Maximize market share?
– Maximize the current value of the company’s
stock?
• Does this mean we should do anything and
everything to maximize owner wealth?

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 The Agency Problem
• Agency relationship
– Principal hires an agent to represent
his/her interests
– Stockholders (principals) hire managers
(agents) to run the company
• Agency problem
– Conflict of interest between principal and
agent
• Management goals and agency costs

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 Managing Managers
• Managerial compensation
– Incentives can be used to align management
and stockholder interests
– The incentives need to be structured carefully to
make sure that they achieve their goal
• Corporate control
– The threat of a takeover may result in better
management
• Other stakeholders

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 Work the Web Example
• The Internet provides a wealth of information
about individual companies
• One excellent site is finance.yahoo.com
• Click on the web surfer to go to the site,
choose a company and see what information
you can find!

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 Financial Markets
• Cash flows to the firm
• Primary vs. secondary markets
– Dealer vs. auction markets
– Listed vs. over-the-counter securities
• NYSE
• NASDAQ

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Financial Markets
 Answer the question
• What are the three types of financial
management decisions and what questions
are they designed to answer?
• What are the three major forms of business
organization?
• What is the goal of financial management?
• What are agency problems and why do they
exist within a corporation?
• What is the difference between a primary
market and a secondary market?

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End of Chapter

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