Today's CPA must have a working familiarity with a number of areas of business law to properly advise clients and to protect their own interests as a practitioner. This course is designed to meet both objectives. The course is broken into six main parts: (1) business entities; (2) civil liability and unfair competition in business; (3) intellectual property; (4) employment law; (5) contracts; and (6) bankruptcy law for businesses.

New Graduate Commerce Course: Special Topics in Finance

Presents the opportunity to examine new and emerging IT topics or study a particular IT related area in greater depth than is covered in other courses. Prerequisite: Graduate Commerce.

This course will focus on global, environmental, and social sustainability and resilience. We will explore how corporations and non-governmental organizations can address and impact change in our current environment. We will study successful leadership strategies within corporations and by social entrepreneurs in effecting societal changes.

Teaches analytical consulting competencies focused on the fast-paced financial industry: 1) Process automation: automating repetitive tasks to increase individual productivity; 2) Financial business intelligence: accessing and manipulating information stored in organizational databases; 3) Financial Engineering: designing and implementing financial algorithms that make financial decisions. More at: http://webs.comm.virginia.edu/Grazioli/GComm7720

This course familiarizes students with the restructuring of financially distressed firms and distressed investing. We analyze credit documents, model credit risk, and survey restructuring methods. Throughout, we consider credit and distressed debt as asset classes and develop techniques and models for investing in credit and distressed instruments.

GCOM 7730 explores three main topics: (1) mergers and acquisitions (2) non-distressed corporate restructurings in the form of leveraged buyouts and private equity and (3) distressed corporate restructuring/bankruptcy. The course is largely case-based and extends concepts and principles learned in GCOM 7060 and GCOM 7710 to practical applications. Students will additionally participate in two negotiation exercises during the term.

This course develops the concepts and tools needed to build and analyze investment portfolios for a wide range of investors including sovereign wealth funds (SWFs), pensions, endowments, family funds, high-net worth individuals, and even small investors taking into account a broad array of investing objectives. The course covers risk/return trade-offs and valuation in the equity, fixed income and derivative markets.

Develops an analytical framework by which individuals and institutions can make real estate investment and financing decisions. Emphasizes theory, concept building, financial modeling, and practical real estate applications. Uses the case method to illustrate implementation of an analytical framework. Restricted to Graduate Commerce.

This class provides students with a deep understanding and hands-on experience with information technology in business settings: advanced Excel features, macros, pivot tables, SQL, databases. By the end of the class students will have developed and tested an Excel-based system to solve a complex business problem in a financial setting. More at http://webs.comm.virginia.edu/Grazioli/GCom7770 Restricted to MS Accounting students.