Course Beginner-friendly
How companies are financed
Earnings, IPOs, debt, buybacks, bankruptcies — business news talks about money flowing through companies, but never explains the plumbing. This course is the plumbing: where a company's money comes from, where it goes, and why a profitable company can still go broke.
A company is a machine for turning money into more money. Business headlines report what the machine does — a record profit, a big buyback, a debt-fuelled takeover, a sudden bankruptcy — but rarely how it works. This course is the how. Not stock tips: the inner workings every company runs on. What a balance sheet really says, why profit and cash are not the same thing (and why that gap sinks profitable firms), the real difference between borrowing money and selling a slice of the company, what an IPO actually raises, why buybacks aren't magic, how borrowing amplifies a good year and a bad one alike, and what happens — and who gets paid — when it all fails. By the end, an earnings report or a takeover headline reads like a story you can follow instead of a wall of numbers.
What you'll be able to do
- Read a company's three core statements, and tell profit from cash.
- Explain where a company's money comes from — debt, equity, an IPO — and what each truly costs.
- Judge what a company should do with its money: reinvest, pay out, buy back, or buy a rival.
- Decode a corporate-finance headline without falling for the common myths.
Course complete
You finished every lesson. Put your name on it.
Module 1 — The money map
A company is a money machine
Explain a company as a machine that turns money into more money, and what the owner's slice actually is.
The balance sheet: own, owe, and what's left
Explain the balance sheet identity — what you own minus what you owe is what's yours.
Profit is an opinion, cash is a fact
Explain why a profitable company can run out of cash and go bust.
Module 2 — Where the money comes from
Debt: borrowing money
Explain how debt works — a fixed claim that must be paid whatever the year brings.
Equity: selling a slice
Explain how equity works, and why it costs nothing now but a share of all future profit forever.
The IPO: going public
Explain what a company raises in an IPO, and what 'money left on the table' means.
The cost of capital: money is never free
Explain why every pound of funding has a cost, and why a project must clear that hurdle.
Module 3 — What the money does
Reinvest, dividends, or buybacks
Explain a company's three choices for its profit, and how a buyback lifts earnings per share.
Leverage: borrowing to amplify
Explain how debt amplifies returns in both directions — and how one bad year can wipe equity out.
Mergers and acquisitions: buying a company
Explain why most acquisitions destroy value — the premium, the winner's curse, and missing synergies.
Valuation: what is a whole company worth?
Explain how a company is valued from its future cash, and why small assumptions swing the answer hugely.