How to pass ICAN Strategic Financial Management
Professional level. The syllabus has 7 areas and they are not worth the same — 70% of the marks sit in just three of them. Knowing which three changes what you do tonight.
Start here, in this order
- 1
Advanced Investment Appraisal 30% of the paper
Discounted cash flow techniques · Application of option pricing theory in investment decisions · Impact of financing on investment decisions and adjusted present values · Valuation and the use of free cash flows · International investment and financing decisions
- 2
Acquisitions, Mergers, Corporate Reconstruction and Re-organisation 25% of the paper
Acquisitions and mergers versus other growth strategies · Valuation for acquisitions and mergers · Regulatory framework and processes · Financing acquisitions and mergers · Financial reconstruction · Business re-organisation
- 3
Advanced Risk Management Techniques 15% of the paper
The role of the treasury function in large organisations · The use of financial derivatives to hedge against foreign exchange risk · The use of financial derivatives to hedge against interest rate risk
The remaining 4 areas share 30% between them. Worth knowing. Not worth the weeks that the three above deserve. Full weightings for this paper.
Then write, by hand, against the clock
Strategic Financial Management is written by hand. Marks are earned by the reasoning — stating the principle, applying it to the scenario, concluding — so an answer that jumps to the figure loses most of them even when the figure is right. Practise full answers on paper, timed at roughly 1.8 minutes per mark.
The part nobody does
Almost every candidate writes practice answers. Almost none of them ever find out whether those answers would have scored. You write, you feel it went reasonably, you move on — and the first real feedback you receive is the result, months later, when the diet is gone.
That gap is the whole reason preparation fails for people who worked hard. Not knowledge. Feedback.
What Edentos does about it
- Find out now. Not when the results come out.
- Write by hand, photograph it, and have it marked against the examiner's own marking guide — with the marks broken down the way the examiner breaks them down, and the reason for each one.
- Revise where the marks are, not where the pages are.
- Every syllabus topic, ordered by the share of marks it carries, so your revision time follows the marks instead of the page count.
- A right answer with no workings is a wrong mark.
- The Institute's published solution beside your attempt, with the mark allocation visible — so you can see the marks sitting in the principle and the application, not only the final figure.
- The exam is handwritten. Your practice should be too.
- Timed mocks written on paper, under exam conditions, so you discover how long handwriting takes before it costs you a question.