The Financial Service Industry

Catalog description

This course provides a broad overview of investment banking and of the forces that are continuing to change it worldwide. It focuses on three big questions: (1) How are things done in this business? (2) Why are they done that way? (3) How are they likely to be done in the future? The approach is to examine each of the principal businesses in which various financial service firms have been involved, including raising capital, financial advisory, broker/dealer positions, trading, investing the firm's own capital, managing the assets of others, both institutions and individuals, and risk management. Throughout, there are a number of overarching themes. Among these are the interplay of regulation, politics, globalization, and technology; the emergence of private equity funds and hedge funds as both critical clients and potential competitors for the major investment banks; the search for new, high-margin products, and whether that process has reached its limits; and the changing relationships among the different groups within the financial service company.