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Financial management
You want to become an absolute expert in all facets of financial management? At Financial Management 4/64, we cover all relevant aspects of financial management for business professionals, investors and ambitious students. This includes financial accounting, financial statement analysis, financial planning, management accounting, financial calculations, corporate finance, equity valuation and strategic financial management decisions. These courses in financial management are complemented by two courses aimed specifically at investors, Investing with Austrian Insights and Planned Chaos.
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4/64
By applying the Pareto principle of conveying key concepts and insights (“64”) within each of the aforementioned areas in a relatively short time (“4”), we quickly set you on the path to a deep understanding of the subject matter and the practical application of the concepts and insights. All financial management courses are integrated into a highly efficient educational platform.
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A 99% Bitcoin Balance Sheet Company
In 1976, Friedrich A. Hayek wrote Denationalization of Money, a plea for the introduction of private currencies as an antidote to monetary corruption. In 1984, Hayek stated, “I don't believe we shall ever have a good money again before we take the thing out of the hands of government, that is, we can't take it violently out of the hands of government, all we can do is by some sly roundabout way introduce something that they can't stop.” By 2024, there are numerous payment solutions available to both businesses and consumers, such as Strike and Bitkey, that allow economic transactions to be conducted smoothly with Bitcoin. At Financial Management 4/64, all payments can be made in Bitcoin and all assets are held in Bitcoin. We have been presenting these Austrian insights since 2006.
Our Courses
Financial Management 4/64 offers the following financial management courses. We aim to convey key concepts and insights in each of these areas in approximately 12 to 16 class hours, supported by an excellent educational platform, both in terms of theory and exercises. Our courses are usually held twice a year, in late June and late January. Final exams are also provided. Are you interested in taking your knowledge and skills in these areas to the next level? Consequently, please email us for additional information.
Financial Accounting
Financial Statement Analysis: A Quality Driven Approach
Introductory to intermediate level
The Financial Accounting course is divided into four parts. In the introductory section, we discuss the conceptual framework underlying financial accounting and the fundamental accounting equation with the resulting accounting entries. The three main financial statements - the income statement, balance sheet and cash flow statement - are introduced. The second part discusses the company's assets. The third section focuses on liabilities and equity. In the fourth section, we provide an in-depth discussion of the cash flow statemen. After this course, you will have a thorough understanding of the above aspects and be ready to make the leap to other courses, including Financial Statement Analysis: A Quality Driven Approach and Management Accounting: A Strategic Approach.
Intermediate level
The course Financial Statement Analysis: A Quality Driven Approach consists of three parts. First, a general framework for financial statement analysis is introduced. Second, we illustrate various decompositions of returns realized by shareholders using ratio analysis. On this basis, we gain an understanding of the (drivers of) corporate performance from various perspectives. The third part introduces the concept of accounting quality and analyzes the quality of the income statement, the balance sheet and the cash flow statement. In particular, we discuss the relationship between income statement quality and cash flow statement quality and how cash flow-based ratios should be interpreted.
Managerial Accounting: A Strategic Approach
Intermediate level
The lessons on Managerial Accounting consist of four major parts. In the first part, we introduce the strategic approach to managerial accounting and cover the relevant concepts of managerial accounting systems. We then show how the information produced by these systems can be used strategically to support management's planning and decision-making process. In the last two sections, we focus on evaluating managers' performance, being operational controls and management controls. The essence of these controls is a comparison of actual performance with budgeted performance.
Financial Computations: An introduction to valuation
Introductory to intermediate level
Before starting the Corporate Finance and Security Valuation courses, you should have a thorough mastery of financial calculations. This course introduces you to concepts such as present value, future value, (growing) annuities and perpetuities, and how these concepts and formulas can be used to value stocks, bonds and investment projects. For bonds, the concepts of duration, term structure of interest rates and default risk are discussed. For equities, we provide a look at three valuation models: the dividend discount model, the discounted cash flow model and the residual income model.
Corporate Finance
After a thorough mastery of financial calculations, we take the step toward corporate finance. This course consists of two major parts, investment project analysis on the one hand and financing decisions on the other. As part of the analysis of investment projects, we highlight a realistic and comprehensive example of a capital investment analysis. This integrates sensitivity and scenario analyses, among other analyses. Within the financing decisions section, we discuss a wide range of financing options. We analyze the impact of these decisions on the company's capital structure and the valuation of investment projects.
Security Valuation
Intermediate level
In a first step of Security Valuation, we look at how the company's operational, investment and financing activities are reflected in the accounting statements. In this way, we gain a thorough understanding of the relationship between the company's business activities and the numbers. We then develop a forecasting framework based on which future pay-offs are predicted. The developed Excel sheet allows you to analyze and forecast the financial statements of the companies you analyze. In a third step, we comprehensively implement cash flow, profit and market-based valuation methods with concrete examples.
Financial Planning for Entrepreneurs
Introductory level
The Financial Planning for Entrepreneurs course provides an extremely practical guide to preparing a financial plan for (start-up) entrepreneurs.
The importance of preparing the financial plan is explained and a realistic case study is used to show how the entrepreneur can prepare an income statement, a cash planning and a balance sheet for a new business or project in Excel. This uses logical thinking and avoids technical terms or domain-specific explanations as much as possible. The result is a course that focuses primarily on “being able to” and “doing".
Once the financial plan is laid out, the main conclusions are discussed in detail. As an entrepreneur, what can you learn from the financial plan? Does the financial plan set the stage for further development of your business or does it still point out some key areas of concern?
Strategic Financial Management
Advanced level
The Strategic Financial Management course builds on the Corporate Finance course and consists of four major components
First, we review the main concepts in Corporate Finance and focus on the application of advanced valuation models. Several case studies are presented. In the second section, we discuss principal-agent problems and formulate an answer to the question of how to manage these problems through corporate governance mechanisms, including the ownership structure of companies and executive compensation.
Third, we delve into advanced debt and equity management decisions, including private equity, venture capital, initial public offerings, and capital raises. Finally, we study other strategic financial management decisions, such as mergers, acquisitions and buyouts. Again, we make use of extensive case studies.
Investing with an Austrian Touch
Introductory level
"Give a man a gun and he’ll rob a bank. Give a man a bank and he’ll rob the world."
In this investor education course, we provide a comprehensive first step understanding of the genesis of today's monetary-financial system. We illustrate with several examples how governments and bankers have time and again abused inflation or money creation to enrich themselves. In 1913, among others, this corruption was institutionalized by the creation of the U.S. central bank, the Federal Reserve. In subsequent decades, a completely pseudo-scientific framework was developed for the ever-inflationary activities of central banks - including the systematic financing of the war industry. “A License To Print”.
After this historical review, we discuss the major asset classes and how they can protect investors from the effects of money creation. Based on these historical figures, three sample portfolios are created, portfolios that investors can use as a source of inspiration in their personal investments. Specifically, it shows how to implement these portfolios and keep your investment strategy on track in the coming years.
Planned Destruction
Intermediate level
"The planners pretend that their plans are to bring about wealth for all. But their true aim is to make the masses of the people obey their orders."
Ludwig von Mises, Planned Chaos
In 1944, Friederich A. Hayek published the work A Road to Serfdom. In this book, he warned of the totalitarian consequences of the central planning of the economy. In 1958, Ludwig von Mises wrote the book Planned Chaos, in which he outlines how central planning of the economy turns into chaos, planned chaos. In this course we will delve deeper into the foundations of these works, illustrate the consequences of central planning using the book The Black Book of Communism, and discuss how Western European countries today, under the influence of centrally driven and deliberately destructive transformations, have fallen into a vicious cycle of the breakdown of social institutions, degradation, exploding violence against the people of Europe, economic decline by destructive policies, ever rising government debts, increasing choking taxes and money creation to finance government deficits. Governments seek refuge in repression against the people of Europe and continuous war to distract citizens from the aforementioned consequences. Based on these insights, we discuss how investors can protect their assets in times of planned chaos and destruction.
There is, of course, no aspect of financial management that is not based on monetary units. Nonetheless, the origin of money and the current monetary-financial system, and how it works, is not properly explained in virtually any course. Below we present some key insights from the Austrian School of Economics, with the Cantillon effect absolutely at number one. These insights immediately provide a totally different view of the current monetary-financial system. The Investing with an Austrian Touch and Planned Chaos courses discuss these insights in detail.
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Cantillon effect
"When new money ... comes into the State, it raises the price of the products in which those who bring it in employ it, and consequently it begins by increasing the revenue of those who sell these products, who in their turn spend this increase on the products which they consume, and so on by degrees till the whole State feels the effect. In this way, new money distributed as it comes in spreads its effects and raises the prices of everything."
Richard Cantillon, Essay on the Nature of Trade in General, 1755
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Emergence of money as a spontaneous and social process
"Money has not been generated by law. In its origin, it is a social, and not a state institution."
Carl Menger, Principles of Economics, 1871
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Corrupt money
“The financial elites of this country, notably the Morgan, Rockefeller, and Kuhn, Loeb interests, were responsible for putting through the Federal Reserve System, as a governmentally created and sanctioned cartel device to enable the nation’s banks to inflate the money supply in a coordinated fashion, without suffering quick retribution from depositors or noteholders demanding cash."
Murray Rothbard, A History of Money and Banking in the United States, 2002
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Social consequences of money creation
“Inflationism, however, is not an isolated phenomenon. It is only one piece in the total framework of politico-economic and socio-philosophical ideas of our time. Just as the sound money policy of gold standard advocates went hand in hand with liberalism, free trade, capitalism and peace, so is inflationism part and parcel of imperialism, militarism, protectionism, statism and socialism."
Ludwig von Mises, Stabilization of the Monetary Unit - From the Viewpoint of Theory, 1923
