Master Capital Budgeting with Real-World Context
Stop guessing at investment decisions. Our autumn 2025 program teaches you the financial analysis skills used by CFOs and senior analysts at Australian enterprises. Built around actual case studies, not textbook theory.
Review Prerequisites
What Past Participants Achieved
These numbers reflect outcomes from our 2023-2024 programs. Your experience will depend on your background, effort, and the specific demands of your career path.
Participants who used program concepts in their current roles within six months of completion
Real capital allocation scenarios examined throughout the program, from mining expansion to tech infrastructure
Alumni satisfaction rating based on anonymous feedback collected three months post-completion
How We Actually Teach This Stuff
Most finance courses throw formulas at you and call it a day. We start with messy real decisions and work backwards to the tools you need.
Case-First Learning
Week one drops you into a mining company deciding between equipment upgrade or new site development. You'll wrestle with incomplete data and conflicting stakeholder demands before we introduce the formal frameworks.
Build Your Own Models
No pre-built spreadsheets. You construct NPV models from scratch, make assumptions explicit, and defend your sensitivity analysis. By week eight, you're customizing approaches for different industries.
Peer Review Sessions
Every major assignment gets reviewed by two other participants before instructor feedback. You'll learn as much from critiquing others' work as from your own projects.
Common Struggles We Help You Navigate
These are the issues that trip up most people learning capital budgeting. Here's how we address each one systematically.
Choosing the Right Discount Rate
Weighted average cost of capital sounds simple until you face real market conditions. Should you adjust for project-specific risk? How do you handle subsidiaries with different capital structures?
- Week three workshop on WACC calculation with five company examples
- Decision tree for when to use risk-adjusted rates versus project-specific hurdles
- Practice with beta estimation for divisions lacking public comparables
Forecasting Cash Flows Realistically
Revenue projections are always optimistic. Expense estimates somehow miss critical items. Working capital changes get ignored. Your NPV is only as good as your inputs.
- Review autopsy of failed projects showing forecast vs. actual performance
- Checklist approach to identifying commonly overlooked cash flow items
- Conservative scenario modeling that accounts for delays and cost overruns
Dealing with Strategic Value
Some investments create options for future growth that don't show up in NPV calculations. How do you quantify flexibility? When does qualitative strategic importance override the numbers?
- Real options framework for valuing flexibility and staging decisions
- Case studies where strategic investments paid off despite negative NPV
- Structured approach to presenting non-quantifiable benefits to decision makers
Presenting to Non-Finance Stakeholders
Your analysis is brilliant but engineering wants more technical detail while executives want three bullet points. Operations questions your assumptions. Everyone has opinions about discount rates.
- Communication workshops tailored for different audience types
- Practice defending assumptions under challenging questions
- Template approaches for executive summaries with supporting detail
Who's Teaching This Program
All instructors maintain active consulting or industry roles. They're teaching methods they actually use, not concepts from outdated textbooks.
15 years in infrastructure project finance, specializing in transport and utilities
Former FP&A manager at ASX-listed mining company, now independent consultant
Corporate finance advisor working with mid-market manufacturing and distribution
Chief strategy officer turned educator, focused on linking finance to business strategy