Lecture date: February 19-20, 2018

Tentative lecture topic

Value Creation through Financial Decision-making

Curriculum Vitae:

Professor Bulent Gultekin is a professor of finance at Wharton, University of Pennsylvania, where he teaches Advanced Corporate Finance and The Finance of Buyouts and Acquisitions. He is renowned for his work in corporate finance and capital markets, economic development and privatization. He was the Governor of Central Bank of the Republic of Turkey, Chief Adviser to the Ministry of Privatization in Poland, Chief Adviser to the Prime Minister of Turkey. He is the Director of Emerging Economies Program at Wharton, and Co-Director of Center for International Financial Research. He served as senior privatization adviser to several governments (Ukraine, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Poland, Indonesia, Turkemenistan, and Turkey) and organizations (The World Bank, European Bank, United Nations Development Program, United States Agency for International Development) on issues of privatization and economic reform, and consultant to several major international corporations.

Lecture:

Lecture will focus on understanding financial decision-making challenges at corporate level, focusing on (a) challenges of creating value through financial management, and (b) challenges of harnessing value through equity financing. Regarding equity financing, discussion will analyze benefits and caveats of equity financing by (a) seeking strategic partner through mergers and acquisitions, and (b) seeking dispersed ownership structure through public offerings. As regional economy is intensely rushing toward industry consolidations, decisions on how to acquire capital and ensure growth are becoming essential and increasingly complex. While outlined approaches are less complex from operational perspective, their implications on firm’s strategy are rather ambiguous.