For the 2025/2026 academic year, the Finance and Risk Management program offers the following workshops:

First Semester

WORKSHOP IN ADVANCED CORPORATE VALUATION (GENERIC 3-credit CODE: B019482)

KON, Prof. Lorenzo Porciani

The “Advanced Corporate Valuation” workshop aims to provide students with advanced and practical tools for corporate valuation in real-life environments.

The course covers key valuation methods – particularly discounted cash flow (DCF), trading comparables and precedent transactions – and applies them to real-world cases, including both healthy companies, distressed businesses, special situations such as valuation performed from a point of view of a industrial/financial investor during a M&A process.

Students will work in teams on a valuation case study, culminating in a final group presentation followed by individual Q&A discussion.

By the end of the course, students will be able to:

• Analyze the financial performance of a company.
• Prepare business forecasts and assess key assumptions.
• Apply different valuation methodologies in real contexts.
• Understand how valuation changes based on business models, sectors, and investor profiles.
• Structure a complete valuation presentation for decision-making purposes.

Class Meetings: from 16th October to 27th November 2025 (D6 Building, Room 0,15), 6 lectures, every Thursday between 2pm and 6pm.

 

WORKSHOP IN FINANCIAL RISK MANAGEMENT (GENERIC 3-credit CODE: B019482)

Prometeia

Students will be engaged in practical applications of Financial risk management in Financial institutions (credit risk modelling and pricing model calibration) supervised by Prometeia managers.

After the presentation of the theoretical background, students will do a project work (group project).

Details about the room and the building will be communicated by email. For more details get in cotact with Prof. Giannozzi.

Class meetings: November 12th and November 19th.

 

CFA RESEARCH CHALLENGE (GENERIC 6-credit CODE: B016465)

Worldwide intercollegiate competition between teams of students studying at different Universities. Each team works directly with a mentor to research and prepare an equity research report on a publicly traded company.

This offers a unique opportunity to translate classroom learning into practical experience in equity research.

Every year FiRM studens form a team and take part on this competition. Last year's students performed really well and qualified for the semi-finals! More information can be found here: CFA Research Challenge

Students who are interested should email their CV, information on completed exams (if any), and grades to Prof. Giannozzi (alessandro.giannozzi@unifi.it). If the number of applications is high, a selection process will be conducted.

Deadline for Applications: October 7th, 2025

Deadline for Submitting the Equity Report: January 30th, 2026

Presentations before a panel of experts will take place in Milan in February 2026

 

Second Semester

WORKSHOP IN CORPORATE FINANCE (SPECIFIC 3-credit CODE: B024220)

Deloitte, Prof. Lorenzo Parrini

This workshop has a specific code. Once completed, it will be recorded directly by Prof. Parrini

The course is designed to provide a comprehensive understanding of M&A in the context of Private Equity investors. The course combines lectures with a practical, professional-oriented approach, incorporating real case studies, tools, and examples derived from industry experience.

The main topics covered by the workshop are listed below:

a) Overview of Private Equity – Key actors, legal structures, fundraising, deal sourcing, investment criteria, company requirements, deal execution, value creation, and exits.

b) M&A Process with Private Equity – Transaction structure and M&A workflow, including pre-due diligence, market approach, non-binding offers (NBOs), financing due diligence, agreements, and signing & closing.

c) Deal Structuring – Types of deals, transaction structure, valuation methods (IRR, CoC, multiples, modeling), and key agreements (SPA, SHA, financing).

d) Company Case Study

e) Group Challenge – Hands-on exercises during the lessons

Class meetings: Mid April 2026 - end of May 2026. Lessons will be on Tuesday: 10:15-11:45; 12:00-13:30  (6 lectures)

 

WORKSHOP IN COMMODITY TRADING (GENERIC 3-credit CODE: B019482)

ENI, Proff. Filippo Baroncelli and Giuseppe Scaramuzzi

This workshop offers a comprehensive and applied overview of trading in energy-related commodities, with a primary focus on natural gas, power, and carbon emission allowances (EUAs). It is designed to equip students with both theoretical foundations and hands-on skills commonly used by professionals in commodity and energy markets.

Topics include market structures, trading strategies, fundamental and technical analysis, derivatives, and risk management tools. Students will explore how physical and financial markets interact, how price drivers shape volatility, and how to manage exposure using hedging instruments.

Each session will be accompanied by a practical case study designed to simulate real-world decision-making and reinforce the theoretical concepts discussed in class.

The course concludes with a final group project presentation, which will be presented during the final session of the course.

By the end of the course, students will be able to:

• Understand the structure and functioning of key energy commodity markets
• Apply both fundamental and technical tools for market analysis
• Understand derivatives and options to structure trading strategies

Class meetings: March-May 2026

 

WORKSHOP IN MACHINE LEARNING FOR FINANCE AND INSURANCE (SPECIFIC 3-credit CODE: B031083)

This workshop has a specific code. Once completed, it will be recorded directly by the Professor.

Further details will be provided in the coming weeks.

 

WORKSHOP IN FINANCIAL MARKETS AND INFORMATION (GENERIC 3-credit CODE: B019482)

Prof. Klaus Schredelseker

The workshop focuses on complexity economics, information economics, financial analysis, and agent-based modeling (simulating artificial markets). Modern academic finance is built on portfolio theory, a normative framework that, as Markowitz emphasized in his seminal paper, primarily addresses the selection of an optimal portfolio. However, before this step lies the formation of beliefs and the estimation of performance, including expected returns, variances, and covariances. 

In this workshop, we aim to explore fundamental questions such as:

• Does it make sense to assume that investors can accurately estimate returns, variances, and covariances?
• Why might a highly skilled and well-informed investor perform worse than a less informed one?
• What strategies do rational investors pursue if everyone is doing their best?
• Should insider trading be restricted for fairness, or allowed?
• Why is “do not herd” considered a crucial rule in financial decision-making, and is herding an anomaly?
• Does increased passive investing (e.g., via ETFs) enhance or reduce market efficiency?
• Who benefits from improvements in the quality of financial reporting (as required by IFRS)?
• Is it rational to apply Bayes’ updating rule in financial market decisions?

Financial markets are complex adaptive systems: a multitude of interacting agents influence each other, adapt, learn, and attempt to outsmart one another in a continuous evolutionary process. Such systems exhibit nonlinearities and often unstable, ever-changing equilibria. Understanding these dynamics is both intellectually challenging and essential for effective financial analysis.

Online meetings (on Jitsi):  March-May 2026 (5 lectures of five hours each). For further details, you can email Prof. Schredelseker (klaus.schredelseker@uibk.ac.at)

 

WORKSHOP IN FINANCIAL MARKETS AND INFORMATION (GENERIC 3-credit CODE: B019482)

Prof. Matteo Lombardo

This workshop will provide a broad overview of the world of asset management, focusing on the application of finance theories and principles to the issues faced by portfolio managers and investors in general. It is designed to expose participants to a wide range of investment topics to give them a sense of what drives investors, how they attempt to put them into practice and what determines their ultimate success.

This workshop will be of great interest to anyone aspiring to a career as analyst, strategist, fund manager, consultant, investment advisor, whether for institutional (funds, insurance, pension) or retail clients (private wealth, family offices).

On completion of the workshop, students will be able to:

▪ Understand the broad and diverse nature of the investment management industry

▪ Reflect on the differences between diverse strands and underlying strategies

▪ Have a better understanding of the threats and opportunities for the sector

Topics covered include:

▪ The investment management industry: structure, players, products, regulation, …

▪ Asset allocation: how do investors decide on the level of capital to allocate to individual asset classes?

▪ Overview of investment strategies (Active vs passive; Traditional vs alternative; Fundamental vs quantitative; Digital assets; Structured credit…)

▪ Risk and performance evaluation

▪ How to improve the investment process

Students will work in teams on a group project, to be presented during the last session.

Class meetings: 5 lessons (3 hours each), between March and May 2026