Strategic Financial Management

Where the marks are

Percentages are the examinable weighting for each area. Revising in this order puts your time where the marks are.

1. Advanced Investment Appraisal

   30%

   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%

   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%

   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

4. Strategic Management

   10%

   Strategic analysis · Strategic choice · Strategic implementation

5. Introduction to Business Strategy and Financial Management

   10%

   The role and responsibility of senior finance executive/adviser · Financial strategy formulation · Corporate environmental, social, governance (ESG) and ethical issues · Management of international trade and finance · Dividend policy in multinationals and transfer pricing · Financial management and ethical issues and emerging technologies

6. Governance

   5%

   Theories and philosophies of corporate governance as bases of decision making · Managing stakeholder groups as part of social responsibility · Nature, significance and scope of enterprise governance and threats to effective governance · Roles and responsibilities of an effective board, including NOCLAR and IT governance · Oversight functions of boards and institutional shareholders; ESG and sustainability policies and disclosures · Suitability of corporate governance and organisational structures, including assurance processes · Probity as a principle of governance and transparency through quality of disclosures · Public sector boards: sustainable long-term success, effective public services and the public interest · Impact of legal and regulatory frameworks on governance mechanisms and processes · Global developments in governance; rules-based versus principles-based approaches and codes

7. Risk Management

   5%

   Key internal and external business risks and their impacts on strategic objectives, operations, reporting and compliance · Risks in business plans and advice on mitigation of strategic, operational and financial risks (including climate change) · Role of those in governance in risk management and impact of inherent and residual risk on stakeholders · Alternative risk management approaches: diversification, transfer, sharing and hedging · Limitations of risk management processes and approaches; risk monitoring and auditing · Mechanisms to monitor risk and risk management processes, including enterprise risk management and ISO 31000

Where candidates lose this paper

The Institute publishes its own past questions. What it cannot give you is an answer to these.

There is not enough time to read the whole study text before the diet.

The official study text condensed and reorganised by examinable weighting, with every claim cited back to the page it came from — so you can check anything you doubt in one click.

You write practice answers for months and never find out whether a single one would have scored.

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.

The study text is hundreds of pages and none of it tells you which parts the examiner actually asks about.

Every syllabus topic, ordered by the share of marks it carries, so your revision time follows the marks instead of the page count.

You know the answer but lose marks anyway, and no one ever explains where they went.

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.

You have only ever typed your answers, and the paper is written by hand.

Timed mocks written on paper, under exam conditions, so you discover how long handwriting takes before it costs you a question.