Preparing for Tomorrow's Workplace Skills

1. The head of your school’s finance department has asked you to address a group of incoming business students about the importance of finance to their overall business education. Develop an outline with the key points you would cover in your speech. (Information)
2. You are the chief financial officer of Discovery Labs, a privately held biotechnology company that needs to raise $3 million to fund the development of a new drug. Prepare a report for the board of directors that discusses the types of long-term financing available to the firm, their pros and cons, and the key factors to consider in choosing a financing strategy. (Information)
3. Team Activity Does paying dividends enhance the value of a company? Some financial experts caution companies to look long and hard before beginning to pay dividends. They believe that committing yourself to a regular dividend curtails financial flexibility and reduces debt capacity. Dividends might also signal that the company doesn’t have good growth opportunities in which to invest its excess cash. Others counter that dividends can help a company’s stock by making it less volatile. Standard & Poor’s data supports this; typically, dividend-paying stocks in the S&P 500 outperform nonpayers. Divide the class into two teams to debate whether dividends add value to a company’s stock. (Interpersonal, Information)
4. Research the trends in the IPO marketplace from 2009 to 2017. Then select two IPO success stories and two failures. Prepare a report for the class on their performance. What lessons about the securities markets can you learn from their stories? (Information)
5. While having dinner at a Manhattan restaurant, you overhear two investment bankers at the next table. They are discussing the takeover of Bellamco Industries by Gildmart Corp., a deal that has not yet been announced. You have been thinking about buying Bellamco stock for a while, so the next day you buy 500 shares for $30 each. Two weeks later, Gildmart announces its acquisition of Bellamco at a price of $45 per share. Have you fairly earned a profit, or are you guilty of insider trading? What’s wrong with insider trading? (Information)
6. Team Activity Is joining an investment club a good way to learn about investing in the stock market? Divide the class into groups of five to eight students to develop a strategy to form their own investment club. Use the National Association of Investors Corporation (NAIC) website at http://www.betterinvesting.org to learn how investment clubs operate and the investment strategy the organization teaches. Each group should then set up guidelines for their investment club and present their plan to the class. After the presentations, the class members should discuss whether they would prefer to start investing through an investment club or on their own. (Resources, Interpersonal, Information)