Park University Unit 8 Discussion/Student Responses

Unit 8: Critical Exchange Forum1111 unread replies.1111 replies.DirectionsInitial Critical Exchange Forum Comment1111 unread replies.1111 replies.Please reflect on your key course learning outcomes and experiences. How has our course altered the way you think about corporate finance? Include one major idea, takeaway, or example.In addition to students’ initial critical exchange forum comments, students are also expected to actively participate in the in the forum discussion. Active participation requires a minimum of two forum logins on two separate days. Thus, a minimum of three logins on three separate days is required to earn full credit. Forum response participation posts require a minimum of 150-250 words to earn full participation points.Guidelines for student forum discussion/participation:Student 1Manage Discussion EntryPlease reflect on your key course learning outcomes and experiences. How has our course altered the way you think about corporate finance? Include one major idea, takeaway, or example.Corporate finance is concerned with how businesses fund their operations in order to maximize profits and minimize costs. It deals with the day-to-day operations of a business’ cash flows as well as with long-term financing goals (e.g., issuing bonds). In addition to capital investments, corporate finance is concerned with monitoring cash flows, accounting, preparing financial statements, and taxation (Hayes, 2022).There are many different tasks done under Corporate Finance and can be as discussed below,Capital Investments. Under corporate finance, tasks include making capital investments and deploying a company’s long-term capital. Therefore, the capital investment decision process is primarily concerned with capital budgeting. Through capital budgeting, a company identifies capital expenditures, estimates future cash flows from proposed capital projects, compares planned investments with potential proceeds, and decides which projects to include in its capital budget.Capital Financing. Its responsible for sourcing capital in the form of debt or equity. A company may borrow from commercial banks and other financial intermediaries or may issue debt securities in the capital markets through investment banks. A company may also choose to sell stocks to equity investors, especially when it needs large amounts of capital for business expansions.Short-Term Liquidity. Is tasked with short-term financial management, where the goal is to ensure that there is enough liquidity to carry out continuing operations. Short-term financial management concerns current assets and current liabilities or working capital and operating cash flows. A company must be able to meet all its current liability obligations when due. This involves having enough current liquid assets to avoid disrupting a company’s operations.ReferenceAdam Hayes (2022). Corporate Finance Definition and Activities. Student 2Manage Discussion EntryGood Afternoon Team!I enjoyed this corporate finance course this semester. It was tough at times and the course really challenged me. It allowed me to understand the different aspects of financing and maintaining operations. It allowed me to understand profit margins are not always the most important aspect to a functioning corporation, which will be helpful as I pursue my career in healthcare administration. Additionally, I understand how using funds to make purchases can reflect differently depending on how the investments were funded. I have also become more proficient at compiling spreadsheets in my current revenue cycle position.Corporate finance is the division of finance that deals with how corporations address funding sources, capital structuring, and investment decisions. I think the most interesting thing I learned is the way different income and debts can be represented on a company’s balance sheet. The balance sheet provides information on a company’s resources and its sources of capital. The information on a balance sheet allows analysts and investors to assess a company’s ability to pay for its operating needs, meet future debt obligations, and make distributions to owners (Hayes, 2022). For instance, when completing my project, I chose CVS Health as my company to analyze and UnitedHealth Group as the benchmark company. While reviewing the balance sheets for both the companies, they showed UnitedHealth Group had a higher operating income than CVS. However, when reviewing debt for both companies, UnitedHealth Group has been consistently increasing their long-term debt, while CVS has worked to significantly decrease their long-term debt obligations (Macrotrends, 2022). CVS Health is performing better because they are able to better meet their debt obligations and operating needs. Before this course, these key analyzing points would have gone right over my head. All in all, I am happy I was able to take this course. The feedback I received from my peers was great! I was always surprised by the different points of view that I hadn’t considered. I truly learned a lot.ReferenceHayes, A. (2022, March 17). Corporate finance definition and activities. Investopedia. Macrotrends. (2022). CVS Health balance sheet 2010-2022. Macrotrends.