by Merle Götz, Leuphana University of Lüneburg, Germany.
Only those who will risk going too far can possibly find out how far one can go. – T. S. Eliot
For most people the word finance is associated with numbers, math, stats – boredom. But what if finance can be the hero of heroes?
That is exactly what happen to Iron Man, Captain America, Hulk, Spiderman and more of the beloved characters of the Marvel Universe. In 1996, what today is one of the biggest franchises around the world, was at the brink of failure: The Marvel Comics company had filed for bankruptcy.
One might think that that is the end of a company, but for Marvel it was the beginning. In 1999 Peter Cuneo was introduced as new CEO and CFO of Marvel Comics. He was known as a Turnaround-Manager, having saved a few companies from bankruptcy before, but this time he would have to take a great risk to alternate the fate of Marvel Comics. By putting up a strict financial plan and lending the rights to his beloved characters to different film studios he achieved a stable income for the firm. The costs for movie production were paid by the studios and part of the income of airing them went into Marvel Comics and the characters became popular. Securing this financial base opened a great opportunity to Cuneo. He decided that Marvel should start its own film studio: Marvel Studios. Of course that was heavily criticized by the owners of the company: Such small company, just starting to get stable again did not have the money to go into film producing. But Cuneo managed to convince them. He put up the most valuable thing of the company as collateral to lend about 525 million US-Dollars from an investment firm: The rights to its most famous 10 characters. If they couldn’t pay the firm back, that would mean the end of Marvel Comics and Studios before it even began. But Cuneo’s great knowledge of finance and his sense for risk didn’t betray him: Iron Man was a hit, playing in about 585 million US-Dollars. Marvel and its heroes were saved by a Finance-Expert, now a hero to those heroes.
And that is exactly why studying finance is incredibly important to business students. A company in trouble is normal in a free economy and if you want to be able to keep your company on track or turn it around you will have to be close to the numbers, understand and work with them, because at the core of every business is its financials, its stats, its math. The module “Finance” in the IBAE major at Leuphana University teaches you the basic knowledge you need to know to later like financial decision making, investment decisions, capital structure theory and business valuation. Of course one will also need experience just like Peter Cuneo, who is known as one of the best Turnaround-Managers of America by today, but with enough experience and the knowledge of the “Finance” module maybe one day you will be able to turn a business around.
