Corporate Finance and Law, LLM or MSc

Corporate Finance and Law, LLM or MSc

Introduction

With both an LLM and MSc exit qualification available, this programme is delivered jointly by the University of Aberdeen's School of Law and Business School, and will provide students with an interdisciplinary learning experience in Finance and Law.

Study Information

Study Options

Learning Mode
On Campus Learning
Degree Qualification
LLM or MSc
Duration
12 months or 24 months
Study Mode
Full Time or Part Time
Start Month
September or January
Location of Study
Aberdeen

With both an LLM and MSc exit qualification available, this is a unique opportunity to benefit from the expertise of staff from both the School of Law and the Business School. This programme has a practical and commercial focus and will appeal to those employed in or with an interest in commercial and professional services, within the legal and financial communities.

Students can choose the most suitable route to follow depending on their own individual career aspirations. Students will learn about key issues in Corporate Finance and Law, providing them with the skills and expertise that they require in this fascinating, important and remunerative area.

This programme offers particular benefits to SMEs by developing skills and knowledge of both the legal and financial markets. Students will gain an insight into finance for SMEs and also raising finance for the stock market.

This degree is open to people from any discipline and will provide students with an interdisciplinary learning experience in Finance and Law.

Available Programmes of Study

Students will be expected to complete four Law focused courses and four Business focused courses, finalising their study with the dissertation. The courses you will study are: Issues in Corporate Finance, Accounting, Introduction to Corporate Finance Law, Corporate Governance for Corporate Finance, Portfolio Analysis, Financial Analysis and Markets, Debt Finance Law, Equity Finance Law. The dissertation will be on either a legal or financial topic.

Please note: Students staring their LLM programme in January write their Dissertation project during the Summer semester.

Duration: 12 months full-time or 24 or 36 months part-time

LLM

Corporate Finance and Law

Qualification Duration Learning Mode Study Mode Start Month Location  
LLM 12 months or 24 months On Campus Learning Full Time or Part Time September Aberdeen More

Programme Fees

Fee information
Fee category Cost
EU / International students £27,000
Tuition Fees for 2024/25 Academic Year
UK £15,700
Tuition Fees for 2024/25 Academic Year

Semester 1

PART TIME ROUTE: This route will take between two to three years.
Year 1

  • PD5006 Getting Started at the University of Aberdeen (0 credit points)
  • LS501T Critical Legal Thinking and Scholarship (0 credit points)
  • BU5034 Issues in Corporate Finance (15 credit points)
  • LS504H Corporate Finance Law (30 credit points)
  • BU5526 Portfolio Analysis (15 credit points)


Year 2

  • BU5031 Accounting (15 credit points)
  • BU5575 Financial Analysis and Markets (15 credit points)
  • LS5582 Corporate Governance (30 credit points)
  • LS5904 LLM Dissertation (60 credit points)

Compulsory Courses

Full Time Route: All candidates take the following courses:

Getting Started at the University of Aberdeen (PD5006)

This course, which is prescribed for all taught postgraduate students, is studied entirely online, takes approximately 5-6 hours to complete and can be taken in one sitting, or spread across a number of weeks.

Topics include orientation overview, equality and diversity, health, safety and cyber security and how to make the most of your time at university in relation to careers and employability.

Successful completion of this course will be recorded on your Enhanced Transcript as ‘Achieved’.

Critical Legal Thinking and Scholarship (LS501T)

This course provides students from diverse legal and educational backgrounds with a common understanding of the core research, analytical, and writing skills which will be required for LLM-Taught courses. The course is delivered as a series of five interactive lectures with two individual assessments designed to encourage critical thinking and provide opportunities for early feedback. It also incorporates a library workshop to provide students with hands-on experience with the resources available for course and dissertation work.

Accounting (BU5031)

15 Credit Points

Students will gain an understanding of what financial information is for and how it is controlled by government, the stock exchanges and other institutions. Students will explore financial accounting assumptions and conventions. They will develop their technical knowledge and skills to enable them to record business transactions and prepare financial statements. Finally, students will be introduced to financial statement analysis and the calculation of key metrics. This will allow them to explore how accounting information is used by stock market participants and the impact on users of current developments and issues in accounting practice, governance and standards.

Issues in Corporate Finance (BU5034)

15 Credit Points

This course introduces students to basic financial concepts before moving on to introduce students to a number of areas of corporate finance including investment appraisal decisions, examining capital structure theory, the financing decisions of the firm, and corporate restructuring. The main aim of the course is to equip students with good analytical skills in order to understand the implications of corporate financing decisions by understanding why companies behave the way they do with respect to financing choices and how this interacts with the real world financial markets, and to enable students to understand the theoretical underpinnings of corporate finance theory.

Corporate Finance Law (LS504H)

30 Credit Points

This course will explore issues within the law of corporate finance, with reference to different legal systems. It will provide students with a wider and deeper understanding of various debt and equity finance issues that are crucial to the law of corporate finance.

Semester 2

Compulsory Courses

Portfolio Analysis (BU5526)

15 Credit Points

This course examines theories and issues relevant to portfolio analysis. Themes include: risk and return; investment motives; the application of modern portfolio theory (including the Capital Asset Pricing Model); information and market efficiency; portfolio analysis and asset pricing; bonds and equities; real estate and derivative markets.

Financial Analysis and Markets (BU5575)

15 Credit Points

Like football, this course is a game of two halves. The first half is financial analysis and builds your ability to analyse companies and think about the implications of financial performance for investors. We will be using Datastream and Bloomberg software. In the second half we will think about how stock markets work and how they are regulated.

Corporate Governance (LS5582)

30 Credit Points

This course will discuss the trajectory of the development of corporate governance over the past three decades, especially in the UK and the US, with a view to understanding the extent to which underlying theoretical assumptions and policy decisions impact legislative, regulatory and self-regulatory arrangements as well as reform options. Students will gain an understanding of why the company as a legal entity has the shape and form that it does; why certain actors are regarded as internal to corporate governance arrangements and others external; and why ongoing (and sometimes apparently futile) reform efforts take the form that they do.

Semester 3

Compulsory Courses

Master of Laws Dissertation (LS5904)

60 Credit Points

Between May and mid-August students prepare a 10,000 word dissertation on a topic of their choice related to their specialist LLM programme. Students are instructed through the delivery of a preparatory lecture, two supervisory meetings and a two hour dissertation planning workshop in a small group setting. Students are expected to spend considerable time on independent research throughout the course of the dissertation module, including; preparation of dissertation plan, amendment of plan in accordance with supervisory comments, preparation for the dissertation workshop, and, of course, in the final 10,000 word dissertation itself.

LLM 12 months or 24 months On Campus Learning Full Time or Part Time January Aberdeen More
MSc

Corporate Finance and Law

Qualification Duration Learning Mode Study Mode Start Month Location  
MSc 12 months On Campus Learning Full Time September Aberdeen More

Fees for individual programmes can be viewed in the Programme(s) above.

We will endeavour to make all course options available; however, these may be subject to timetabling and other constraints. Please see our InfoHub pages for further information.

Fee Information

Additional Fee Information

  • Fees for individual programmes can be viewed in the Programmes section above.
  • In exceptional circumstances there may be additional fees associated with specialist courses, for example field trips. Any additional fees for a course can be found in our Catalogue of Courses.
  • For more information about tuition fees for this programme, including payment plans and our refund policy, please visit our InfoHub Tuition Fees page.

Funding Opportunities

The University of Aberdeen provides an Alumni Discount Scheme:

The University of Aberdeen is very pleased to offer a 20% discount on postgraduate tuition fees for all alumni who have graduated with a degree from the University of Aberdeen. More Information can be found here.

Scholarships

Eligible self-funded international Masters students will receive the Aberdeen Global Scholarship. Visit our Funding Database to find out more and see our full range of scholarships.

How You'll Study

Assessment Methods

Throughout the course, a mix of coursework, exams and a dissertation is used as the basis of assessment.

Why Study Corporate Finance and Law?

By bringing together students from both financial and legal backgrounds, each student will benefit from peer-led learning and will have a rich context experience, gaining an in-depth understanding of both the financial and legal sectors and how they interconnect.

Ranked 7th in the UK for Accounting and Finance in the Guardian University Guide 2024 and Top 10 in the UK for Law, by the Times & Sunday Times Good University Guide 2024.

Taught by top legal and business academics, who are shaping national and international policy, for example in regulation and the energy sector.

The Centre for Commercial Law fosters research excellence in commercial law and offers unique research activities by serving as a dynamic hub for law academics, legal practitioners, those working in related professions, industry representatives, activists and policymakers, providing opportunities for synergy and rich engagement.

Professional training facilities are also available including the Bloomberg finance lab, used by major financial services companies across the world and integrating real activity in financial markets directly into our students’ courses.

What Our Students Say

Irina Shustova

Irina Shustova

Irina Shustova

I am impressed by the comprehensive structure of the courses. It helped me to develop my strategic vision of the world of business. MSc Corporate Finance and Law is a fantastic programme that has really changed my career horizons for the better.

Euan Price

Euan Price

Euan Price

LLM Corporate Finance and Law does a great job of blending teaching from the two Schools, as you are being taught the legal underpinnings of the industry, whilst simultaneously learning some of the core business skills related to work in this field.

Entry Requirements

Open to people with a degree in any discipline, a law degree is not a requirement for the LLM. Likewise a finance degree is not a requirement for the MSc.

Those with a background in Accounting, Management, Maths, Engineering, Finance, Economics, Banking or similar will be considered.

Qualifications

The information below is provided as a guide only and does not guarantee entry to the University of Aberdeen.

The minimum entry requirements for this programme is a degree at 2:1 (upper second class) UK Honours level (or a degree from a non-UK institution which is judged by the University to be of equivalent worth).

Please enter your country to view country-specific entry requirements.

English Language Requirements

To study for a Postgraduate Taught degree at the University of Aberdeen it is essential that you can speak, understand, read, and write English fluently. The minimum requirements for this degree are as follows:

IELTS Academic:

OVERALL - 6.5 with: Listening - 5.5; Reading - 5.5; Speaking - 5.5; Writing - 6.0

TOEFL iBT:

OVERALL - 90 with: Listening - 17; Reading - 18; Speaking - 20; Writing - 21

PTE Academic:

OVERALL - 62 with: Listening - 59; Reading - 59; Speaking - 59; Writing - 59

Cambridge English B2 First, C1 Advanced, C2 Proficiency:

OVERALL - 176 with: Listening - 162; Reading - 162; Speaking - 162; Writing - 169

Read more about specific English Language requirements here.

Document Requirements

You will be required to supply the following documentation with your application as proof you meet the entry requirements of this degree programme. If you have not yet completed your current programme of study, then you can still apply and you can provide your Degree Certificate at a later date.

Degree Transcript
a full transcript showing all the subjects you studied and the marks you have achieved in your degree(s) (original & official English translation)
Personal Statement
a detailed personal statement explaining your motivation for this particular programme

Careers

Successful students will benefit from an appeal to employers with a need for individuals with the interdisciplinary skills of Law and Finance within the same role.

We have 83,500 alumni across 192 countries. Some of our alumni work in top positions such as Chief Financial Officer for GSK, Former CEO for Aberdeen Standard Investments, and Chief Operating Officer for Hasberg Global Investors.

Accreditation

The Business School is EQUIS accredited, placing it among a select group of globally recognised institutions. Out of over 15,000 business schools worldwide, only around 200 schools across 45 countries have attained this distinction.

This degree holds accreditation from

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Interdisciplinary Appeal

Study both legal and financial issues and obtain an interdisciplinary qualification

Top 10 UK Law School

We are ranked Top 10 in the UK for Law by the Times and Sunday Times Good University Guide 2024.

Our Experts

You will be taught by and have access to a number of experts, many of whom are internationally renowned within their respective fields. These will include members of the Centre for Commercial Law alongside experts from the Business School.

Programme Coordinators
Dr Alisdair MacPherson
Dr Daniel Gyimah

Information About Staff Changes

You will be taught by a range of experts including professors, lecturers, teaching fellows and postgraduate tutors. Staff changes will occur from time to time; please see our InfoHub pages for further information.

Get in Touch