Corporate finance simulation where students choose the funding

A corporate finance simulation is a timed activity where students make the financing and investment decisions a firm actually faces and live with what those decisions do to each other. In the Finsimco Corporate Finance Simulation, each student funds a 400 million dollar expansion, watches the cost of equity re-price as leverage rises, re-ranks the project set at the resulting cost of capital and defends the structure to a board after rates move. Unlike a problem set, the discount rate is an output of the student's own choice.

Undergraduate and postgraduate students on Corporate Finance, Financial Management, Business Finance, Managerial Finance or MBA core finance courses, and MBA programmes. Difficulty is adjustable, so the same case can be set with a fixed cost of debt and a given project list, or with a rating-sensitive debt cost, a binding covenant, an interest rate move and a payout signal that moves the share price for Masters and MBA cohorts.

No capital structure experience is needed, but students should be comfortable with present value and net present value. The cost of equity, the weighted average cost of capital, the interest tax shield and the rating grid are computed and explained inside the activity, with worked examples in the tool tips.

Best once capital budgeting has been covered and capital structure is being introduced, typically from week five onwards. It also works earlier as a shared reference point, because the expansion gives the cohort something concrete to attach the propositions to.

The Capital Budgeting simulation takes the discount rate as given and concentrates on ranking projects under a constraint. This one makes the discount rate the student's own decision, so the ranking moves when the financing does.

A case study asks students to analyse a capital structure someone else chose. Here each student picks the mix, sees the equity re-price against it, ranks the projects at the rate that produces and then meets a rate move and a rating action. You get the structure, the WACC build and the reasoning behind every project cut, rather than a written summary of what they think a CFO should have done.

Most corporate finance teaching tools are spreadsheet exercises where the WACC is an input and the answer follows mechanically. The Finsimco Corporate Finance Simulation is different because the propositions bite. The cost of equity moves with leverage, the rating moves with cover, and the project ranking changes underneath the student as a result. It suits modules that want capital structure theory to be felt rather than recited.

It can sit alongside one or replace it. A problem set teaches the arithmetic of a WACC. This teaches what the arithmetic is standing in for, and why the most levered structure on the sheet is rarely the one a board will approve.

They take the capital structure, investment and payout roles in turn, choose how to fund a 400 million dollar expansion, re-price the cost of equity against the leverage they chose, rank the projects at the resulting cost of capital, decide the dividend, then work through a 150 basis point rate move and a rating action before defending the plan to a board.

Every student holds all three. Capital structure wants the cheapest funding, investment wants projects approved and payout wants a dividend the market will not punish. Nothing is submitted until all three are satisfied, so the student has to reconcile them rather than pick a favourite.

No. A conservative structure and a more levered one can both be defended, depending on what the student assumes about distress and the rating. What scores badly is a WACC built by holding the cost of equity fixed, or a project list ranked at a rate the financing never produced.

Single-player. Every student runs the same case independently, so there is no team formation, no minimum cohort size and no group-work marking to untangle. It runs equally well with one student or several hundred.

About four hours with the default timings, and the timings are yours. Every stage can be lengthened or shortened from the professor panel, so the same simulation fits a longer block or a shorter slot.

Yes. It pauses and resumes without losing submitted data. Two configurations work well: two sessions, with Briefing and Capital Structure in the first and the Rate and Rating Shock, the Board Review and the debrief in the second; or three sessions, one per decision stage. Briefing can also be set as pre-reading if you would rather open on the first decision.

Yes to all four. Because students work independently inside the platform, a remote or asynchronous run behaves exactly like an in-room one, which also makes it straightforward to set as homework. Delivery is covered across our simulations for universities.

As much or as little as you like. The simulation is self-running and coaching is optional. You control the timeline, can adjust stage timings, and can monitor student inputs live. See how a Finsimco session runs for the setup, controls and first-delivery support.