Workshops are recommended for second-year students. Workshops can be recorded only during your second year, according to the study plan of our Master’s Degree program.

You have to record 6 credits in your career for workshops and/or internships (courses without marks).

In your study plan, you can choose 6 credits by combining the following codes:

B031179	INTERNSHIP	6
B019480	INTERNSHIP	3
B019482	WORKSHOP	3
B034458	WORKSHOP 2	3
B024220	WORKSHOP IN CORPORATE FINANCE	3
B031083	WORKSHOP IN MACHINE LEARNING FOR FINANCE AND INSURANCE	3

Code B019482 and code B034458 include different generic workshops (without a specific code). If you have attended the CFA challenge (6 credits), you must include in your study plan both code B019482 and code B034458.  

Workshops with the generic code B019482 and B034458 will be recorded by Prof. Ielasi after enrollment in one of the ordinary exam sessions (after successfully passing the workshop).

When recording for a generic workshop, it is mandatory to specify which workshop was attended in the Notes Section (without specifying the workshop, it will not be recorded).

Workshop in Corporate Finance and Workshop in Machine Learning for Finance and Insurance will be recorded by Prof. Parrini and Prof. Mariotti, respectively (after the enrollment in one of the ordinary exam sessions - after successfully passing the workshop).

NOTE: For organizational reasons, you are required to register now for the workshops you intend to attend during the next academic year.. You will receive a specific form to enroll in the workshops in the next days.

 

Workshops will be held with a minimum of five participants and a maximum of 25 (given the highly practical and professional teaching method and contents). Places will be allocated on a first-come, first-served basis.

 

For the 2026/2027 academic year, the Finance and Risk Management program offers the following workshops:

 

FIRST SEMESTER

 

1. WORKSHOP IN FINANCIAL RISK MANAGEMENT (Generic workshop - 3 credits)

By 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.

Two meetings in class on November/December.

After the presentation of the theoretical background, students are asked to complete a project work (group project).

 

Details about the classroom and the dates will be communicated by email.

 

For more details: Prof. Alessandro Giannozzi

 

 

2. WORKSHOP IN ADVANCED CORPORATE VALUATION (Generic workshop - 3 credits)

By 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 and also valuation performed from a point of view of a industrial/financial investor during a M&A process.

Students work in teams on a valuation case study prepared by themselves, 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.

 

Meetings in class: 6 lectures, October-December.

 

Details about the classroom and the dates will be communicated by email.

 

 

3. CFA RESEARCH CHALLENGE (Generic workshop - 6 credits)

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

Unique educational opportunity to apply what you have learned in the classroom to real-world practice in equity research.

The FiRM program participates with 1 team (5 students).

What: in-depth analysis of a single Italian company (industry, business strategy, valuation, ...) with the writing of a detailed 10 pages report.

 

The competition begins with a local Italian round, where participants compete to determine the winners. The winners then advance to the European finals, with the top European contenders ultimately progressing to the Global Finals.

 

Period: Nov. 2026 – February 2027

 

Info:

- Research Challenge

- CFA Institute Research Challenge

Interested students should send an email to  alessandro.giannozzi@unifi.it with CV, info about passed exams (if any) and grades, by September 14th. A formal selection process will take place over the coming months among the candidates.

 

 

4. WORKSHOP IN INVESTMENT MANAGEMENT (Generic workshop - 3 credits)

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 investors.

It is designed to expose participants to a wide range of topics to give them a sense of what drives financial markets, how investors attempt to put them into practice and what determines their ultimate success.

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

▪ the broad and diverse nature of the investment management industry

▪ the differences between investment philosophies and underlying strategies

▪ what it takes to successfully work in the industry

 

Topics covered will include [a detailed syllabus will be distributed the first day]:

▪ The investment management industry: structure, trends, 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)

▪ Risk and performance evaluation

▪ How to improve the investment process

 

There will also be a team project, to be presented during the last class.

As such, this workshop will be of great interest to anyone aspiring to a career as analyst, strategist, fund manager, consultant, or investment advisor, whether for institutional or retail clients.

This is a case-based workshop taught with a practitioner’s eye: it will make extensive use of both sell- and buy-side reports, in addition to case studies and articles from banks and consulting companies, and discussions of current/recent events.

It only assumes a basic understanding of financial instruments, as well as students' interest in investments and portfolio management.

 

Teaching period: September 28 / October 5, 12, 19, 26 / November 2

Room D6 – 1.05

Monday, 2:30 pm – 5:45 pm

 

 

 

SECOND SEMESTER

5. WORKSHOP IN CORPORATE FINANCE (CODE B024220 - 3 credits)

By Deloitte - Prof. Lorenzo Parrini

This workshop has a specific code. At the end, it will be recorded directly by Prof. Parrini

 

The course aims to provide the concepts of M&A with Private Equity Investors.

Main topics:

a) Overview of Private Equity, including: main actors, legal forms, fundraising, deal sourcing, investment criteria, company needs, deal execution, value creation, exits.

b) M&A Process with Private Equity: transaction structure and M&A process: pre-due diligence, market approach, NBOs, financing due diligence, agreements, Siging & closing.

c) Deal Structuring: Deal types. Structure of the transaction, valuation (IRR & CoC, multiples, modeling), key agreements (SPA, SHA, Financing).

d) Company Case Study

e) Group Challenge during the lessons

The course include traditional classes with a practical approach from professional experience, tools and real case studies.

 

Teaching period: every Tuesday, March/April - 6 lectures

Room: D4/1.03

Time: 10:00 am - 2:00 pm 

 

 

6. WORKSHOP IN COMMODITY TRADING (Generic workshop - 3 credits)

By ENI - Prof. Filippo Baroncelli, Giuseppe Scaramuzzi

The Commodity Trading 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.

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

 

Exam Format: Group Project Work, to be presented during the final session of the course.

Teaching period: May 7th (Friday), May 13th (Thursday), May 14th (Friday), May 20th (Thursday), May 21 (Friday)

Room: On Friday Room D6 014; On Thursday Room D6 006

Time: 4:00 – 7:30

 

 

7. WORKSHOP IN MACHINE LEARNING FOR FINANCE AND INSURANCE (CODE B031083 – 3 credits)

Prof. Tommaso Mariotti (Cerved)

This workshop has a specific code. At the end, it will be recorded directly by the Prof. Mariotti. 

The workshop introduces the main machine learning techniques applicable to financial and insurance problems, with emphasis on the operational use of Python, the analysis of complex datasets and the critical assessment of predictive models.

The program includes: fundamentals of scientific programming in Python; data handling and preliminary descriptive analysis; key concepts of statistical learning; distinction between supervised and unsupervised learning; introduction to classification and regression problems; logistic regression; resampling and bootstrap; cross-validation and model validation; decision trees; random forests; bagging and boosting; support vector machines and hyperplane-based classifiers; introduction to neural networks; unsupervised learning; principal component analysis; design, development and presentation of an applied project in finance or insurance.

By the end of the course, students will have acquired a solid understanding of the fundamental principles of statistical learning, regression and classification tasks, logistic regression, resampling, decision trees, random forests, support vector machines, neural networks and unsupervised learning.

Students will be able to use scientific programming tools in Python to import, organize and analyze data, apply classification and regression methods, validate predictive models and interpret their results in financial and insurance contexts.

 

Time: 4 pm to 7:30 pm

Teaching period: every Friday from February 26th to April 9th

Room: D6 014

 

Please note: the workshop schedule partially overlaps with the schedule for the Private Equity and Due Diligence Lab course. Students are advised to include only one of the two courses in their study plan.

 

 

7. WORKSHOP IN FINANCIAL MARKETS AND INFORMATION (Generic workshop - 3 credits)

Prof. Klaus Schredelseker

The workshop explores the interconnected fields of complexity economics, information economics, financial analysis, and agent-based modelling, with particular emphasis on the simulation of financial markets.

Modern academic finance is fundamentally based on portfolio theory, a normative framework that, as Harry Markowitz emphasizes in his seminal work, represents the second stage of portfolio selection. The first stage—and the foundation for everything that follows—is the formation of expectations about future security performance, including estimates of expected returns, variances, and covariances. Neglecting financial analysis therefore undermines the foundations of portfolio theory and subsequent capital market theory.

The workshop examines how investors form expectations, process information, and make decisions under uncertainty. It considers investor heterogeneity, the strategies adopted by rational agents, the implications of information asymmetries and insider trading, and the role of herding in financial markets. It also explores how passive investment, such as ETFs, may affect market efficiency, who benefits from improved financial reporting under IFRS, and the role of Bayesian updating in financial decision-making.

Financial markets can be understood as complex adaptive systems in which large numbers of interacting agents continuously influence, learn from, and adapt to one another. These evolutionary processes generate nonlinear dynamics and potentially unstable, continuously changing equilibria.

Understanding markets from this perspective is a significant intellectual challenge, requiring us to move beyond simplified assumptions of perfect rationality and equilibrium and examine how information, expectations, learning, interaction, and adaptation collectively shape financial outcomes.

 

The workshop is done online in five teaching units, five hours (225 min) each, in the period March-May.. For the internet sessions use Jitsi, the meeting name is FinancialMarkets.

 

For details, you can contact Prof. Schredelseker on klaus.schredelseker@uibk.ac.at