MAK Group's Financial Department Internship - Lab Report Example

Following my tenure under the MAK Group's Financial Department, I then moved to the Real Estate Department, where I handled an all-new set of tasks and responsibilities. From April 2010 until this past August, I have been charged with supervision and quality control of the Group's various real estate assets, as well as the execution of rules and regulations of the many companies included in the Group. I have also been tasked with interviewing tenants, as well as contract approvals and the determination of renting prices.

Unit maintenance is also one of the many tasks I performed as part of the Real Estate Department, as is the preparation of rent and expense reports and the computerization of the entire Department. Finally, I have also worked on many projects at the development level, including concepts and feasibility studies. To encourage a better understanding of my experiences working at the MAK Group's Financial and Real Estate Departments, this report shall thus explore the fields of finance and real estate in order to explain some of the concepts one needs to understand in order to work in these fields.

Discoveries made here will also be tied to my experiences. Following these two parts is a brief reflection on my experiences with the MAK Group, before the conclusion. Corporate Finance To study finance is to study the way assets are allocated in times of certainty and uncertainty. Practitioners in this field tend to emphasize the time value of money, which basically means that a unit of currency today will always be worth more than it is tomorrow. Subcategories falling under this heading include public, personal, and corporate finance, which shall be the focus of this report.

It has been said by the British SAS that 'who dares, wins'; such a mindset would hardly be out of place in the realm of corporate finance, where high risks tend to equate to high returns. Assets are priced according to their risk level and expected rate of return, both of which tend to be directly proportional to each other. This means that while companies who play it safe and stick to low-risk projects may get by, real success is only experienced by those willing to be brave with their investments at the risk of losing more should they fail.

Where the income to be had outweighs the risk involved, a particular investment becomes more and more attractive and desirable - which is where capital investment decisions come in. Because a company's resources are limited, management personnel must be able to discern which projects ought to be invested in, and to what degree - in a process known as capital budgeting. Also known as investment appraisal, this planning process is aimed at determining which of a company's long-term investments are worth pursuing and investing in.

Depending on certain factors, such as the current circumstances, the company's priorities, and the resources it has on hand, some investments may be more worthwhile than others (Sullivan and Sheffrin, 2003). The need for this planning process can be explained in terms of four points. First and foremost, given the limited resources available to companies, as well as the exorbitant amount of money usually involved in making investments, it so follows that this will affect the profitability of the company itself.