Archive for June/2011

IE Business School holds the No. 2 position in the Financial Time ranking of Masters in Finance programs.

The IE Master in Finance achieved this result in the pre-experience category with its full-time English-taught program, aimed at young professionals with an international profile. The student body of IE’s Master in Finance program comprises 95% international students from 23 countries, and takes place in Madrid and New York.  It is the first finance program in Spain to be awarded the status of Program Partner by the CFA (Chartered Financial Advisor) Institute, the leading international standard for financial analysts.

Ignacio de la Torre, Director of Masters in Finance at IE Business School says that the finance sector needs specialized profiles with an international focus. “This is exactly what our programs provide, and our graduates work in firms like UBS, Morgan Stanley, Credit Suisse, Waterland and BCG. Emerging economies also offer enormous potential given the rapid development of their capital markets.” Read more…

IE Focus | By Enrique Dans, Professor at IE Business School

The spectacular valuations of social networks bear a striking resemblance to what happened during the dotcom bubble, including some of the key players. What makes a company like Goldman Sachs value Facebook at the spectacular figure of €50 billion? Along with a number of investors who confirmed said valuation by investing no less than $2 million in shares they won’t be able to sell until 2013? Are we facing another edition of the fearsome bubble we experienced at the beginning of the century?

Indeed, what we are seeing today has many things in common with what we saw then. It even features the same key players: the same investment bank which, together with others, started the bubble by transferring the phenomenon of companies that began their activities on the Internet from specialised venture capital investors to more general investors. Together with the “report-sellers”, who depend on their reports being spectacular to make their sales, they gave rise to that spectacular phenomenon of overheating referred to by Alan Greenspan as “irrational exuberance”. Is Facebook worth 50 billion?

After the bubble, the evolution of Internet companies has been very conservative. Careful salaries, valuations that could be accepted by traditional metrics, restricted costs, etc. Now, he who brings euphoria is he who makes most money with it: the same people who did it in 1999, with the same arguments, i.e. people who sell picks and shovels at the height of the gold rush. Facebook is a brilliant enterprise. It is profitable, it is growing fast and it is redefining a new activity ecosystem that is undoubtedly worth a lot of money. But valuations must be based on results and now that we have comparable companies, 50 billion require multipliers that simply do not make sense. The fact that someone will pay an amount for a percentage does not necessarily mean that the proportion should be applied generally to the total. Facebook is not a bubble: it is a company with a good business model that will not collapse tomorrow or the day after. But please, let´s keep our feet on the ground.

Here is the dilemma: you need more acumen of Finance but either your family or your professional environment does not allow you to step out for one year to gain that knowledge. Sounds familiar?

Now. Here is the solution: IE launches this fall the Global Master in Finance, a 14 month blended Master Degree 100% dedicated to Finance. Based on the successful Finance full-time programs with a strong focus to the market and not the engineering side of Finance, this program uses Forum discussion and Videoconferences to discuss cases covering all areas of this important industry.

The learning methodolgy (blended learning) which combines online as well as face-to-face sessions has been used by IE Business School for almost 10 years in its blended MBA programs. Working in teams throughout the program keeps you committed and motivated – apart from getting engaged in discussions with people from all regions of the world sharing their experience in their particular Finance world.

Explore more on http://gmif.ie.edu.

The IE International MBA starts with an innovative, constantly changing module called LAUNCH. In past edition, students had to play basketball, talk like actors and develop their creative side guided by the Architecture Association of London.

In this year edition, the IE School of Architecture created a workshop related to Design Thinking. Enjoy the video!

Have you thought about an online / distance learning / blended Master Degree but you were not really sure whether this is right for you?

Definitely you’re not the only one… many doubts arise around the learning experience itself, the online methodology and the biggest question mark people put on the value of the degree for recruiters. Wouldn’t it be good to shade some light on these topics? And not just only from the perspective of the institution itself but from current students and graduates from the Global MBA?

So, you’re most welcome to attend to the first Global MBA Roundtable! Some of our current students and alumni in Singapore will talk about their expierences and reveal their personal perspectives on the questions raised above.

Here are the details:

• Date: June 14, 2011
• Time: 19:30 – 20:30
• Venue: Gallery Hotel, 1 Nanson Road (@Robertson Quay)
• Registration: http://bit.ly/GlobalMBA

And in case you’re interested in the Global Master in Finance, it is worthwhile to attend as well. Both progams share the learning methodoloy, group dynamics, videoconferences etc.