Central Asia and Advanced Corporate Finance...
After reading my blog, some people have come to wonder whether I do any studying at all at Tuck. So, I thought I will reflect about some of my courses.
Today was the first class of Doing Business in South East and Central Asia. I was expecting to be taught by professors who are knowledgeable about the geography. But what I am getting has blown all my expectations. One of the professors, a T'61, spent 6 years (till 2001) living in Central Asia and headed the biggest investment fund in the region. He apparently knows personally the presidents of 4 of the 5 countries (and has briefly met the president of the 5th country). The introduction he gave to the countries were much richer since he was speaking from personal experience. Some day, I want to travel to Central Asia and just see what is happening on the ground. The geography is made out to be a treasure trove of natural resources.
Advanced Corporate Finance is another fascinating course. Taught seminar style (we are 14 students in the class!), the course involves surveys of academic literature in different corporate finance topics - ranging from underpricing of IPO's, pecking order theory and dividend policy. The professor has quite a unique style. "There seems to be a growing body of evidence that companies try to match earnings to analyst expectations. Does this mean analysts know the industry better than the companies themselves? If this is true, if a market pulls down a stock price after an M&A announcement, should management drop the transaction?" This is just one of the puzzles we grapple with in class. Now, that is so much more fun than learning how to price a new product or implement a new employee reward system.
posted by Tagad_Tale @ 9:17 PM
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