RES 4 — Rules, Ethics and Skills for Corporate Finance — is a CMFAS examination module administered by the Institute of Banking and Finance Singapore. It is the Rules, Ethics and Skills module mapped to the regulated activity of advising on corporate finance, so candidates are typically corporate finance advisory professionals preparing to carry on regulated activities in Singapore. The module tests regulatory knowledge across the full deal lifecycle: the structure of the Singapore capital markets, raising capital, getting listed, post-listing obligations, the Take-overs and Mergers Code, market conduct, ethics, advisory practices and skills, and prevention of financial crimes. This guide organises 30 substantive concepts across those official syllabus domains so you can study systematically rather than haphazardly. Use the concepts as your revision backbone, test yourself with the scenarios, and verify every administrative detail directly with IBF before you book, since examination administration can change.
Exam and assessment essentials
- Format
- 60 multiple-choice questions, computer based[1]
- Duration
- 1.5 hours[1]
- Pass mark
- 75%[1]
- Exemptions
- No exemptions are available for RES 4 because it is a Rules, Ethics and Skills examination[1]
- Results
- Results are displayed on screen after the exam; result slips can be printed from the IBF Portal account from the next business day[1]
- Study guide
- Registered candidates receive PDF access to the study guide via the IBF Portal; access expires on the examination day[2]
- Licensing context
- After completing the relevant CMFAS modules, candidates must lodge a notification with MAS before carrying out regulated activities[1]
What the syllabus covers
This study map groups the official scope into revision themes. It is not an official chapter list or a prediction of question weightings.
The capital markets and corporate finance industry in Singapore
Explain the roles of key regulators, exchanges and market participants, and how corporate finance advisory work fits into the securities market framework.[1]
Raising capital
Compare equity and debt fund-raising methods, primary and secondary issues, and the mechanics and risks of rights issues, placements and public offers.[1]
Getting listed
Describe the listing process, the functions of issue managers, underwriters and sponsors, and the disclosure documents and conditions associated with an IPO.[1]
Post-listing obligations and considerations
Apply continuous disclosure thinking, circulars, shareholder approval contexts and ongoing obligations that govern a listed issuer after admission.[1]
Overview of the Singapore Code on Take-overs and Mergers
Explain the Code's general offer obligation, concert party analysis, offer price principles and the role and powers of the Securities Industry Council.[1]
Market conduct
Identify insider trading, false trading, price manipulation and disclosure-of-interest obligations under the securities legislation.[1]
Ethics, codes and standards of professional conduct for corporate finance
Apply integrity, objectivity, competence, confidentiality and conflict-of-interest standards to advisory situations.[1]
Corporate finance practices and skills
Use valuation techniques, financial statement analysis, deal structuring and due diligence skills expected of an adviser.[1]
Prevention of financial crimes
Recognise money laundering and terrorism financing red flags and the expectations around customer due diligence and suspicious transaction reporting.[1]
30 key concepts to understand
- Regulator versus exchange: MAS and SGX roles
- Advising on corporate finance as a regulated activity
- Participants in the corporate finance value chain
- Equity versus debt capital raising
- Primary versus secondary issues
- Rights issue mechanics and dilution
- Private placement versus public offering
- Purpose and content of offering documents
- Underwriting: risk transfer and firm commitment economics
- Listing tiers: Mainboard and Catalist distinctions
- Role of the sponsor on Catalist
- Continuous disclosure after listing
- Interested person transactions and shareholder protection
- Circulars and the shareholder approval process
- The general offer obligation under the Take-overs Code
- Concert parties and group attribution
- Offer price: highest price principle and equal treatment
- The Code is rules-based but not legislation
- Conditions and schemes of arrangement versus offers
- Insider trading: the information connection requirement
- Market manipulation: false trading and price rigging
- Disclosure of interests by directors and substantial shareholders
- Core ethical standards: integrity, objectivity and competence
- Conflicts of interest and information barriers
- Confidentiality and its disclosure exceptions
- Discounted cash flow valuation logic
- Comparable company multiples and their limits
- Reading financial statements for deal analysis
- Due diligence purpose and scoping
- Customer due diligence and suspicious transaction reporting
The capital markets and corporate finance industry in Singapore
1. Regulator versus exchange: MAS and SGX roles
The Monetary Authority of Singapore is the statutory regulator of the securities industry, administering the legislation that governs regulated activities, licensing and market conduct. Singapore Exchange is a commercial operator of the securities and derivatives markets that also sets and enforces listing rules against issuers. An action can breach an exchange rule without being a statutory offence, and vice versa, so advisers must know which regime a given obligation arises from.[1]
Common mistake: Treating listing rule breaches and breaches of securities legislation as interchangeable when they carry different enforcement mechanisms and consequences.
The capital markets and corporate finance industry in Singapore
2. Advising on corporate finance as a regulated activity
Advising on corporate finance is a regulated activity under the securities legislation, covering activities such as advising on take-overs, mergers, acquisitions and the issuance or disposal of securities. Carrying on the activity generally requires an appropriate capital markets services licence or an exemption. This is precisely why RES 4 is the Rules, Ethics and Skills module mapped to this activity in the CMFAS framework.[1]
Common mistake: Assuming advisory work for private companies is outside the perimeter; the activity definition focuses on corporate finance advice concerning securities and offers, not merely on whether the client is listed.
The capital markets and corporate finance industry in Singapore
3. Participants in the corporate finance value chain
A typical transaction involves several distinct specialists: the issue manager who manages an offering process, underwriters who take placement risk, the receiving agent or independent financial adviser in offer situations, reporting accountants, valuers and legal counsel. Understanding who owes which duty to whom is central to advisory work, because roles such as independent adviser exist specifically to protect offerees rather than the offeror.[1]
Common mistake: Confusing the roles of issue manager and underwriter: the manager runs the process while the underwriter bears the risk of unsold securities; one firm may do both but the functions differ.
Raising capital
4. Equity versus debt capital raising
Equity funding exchanges ownership stakes for permanent capital without fixed repayment obligations but dilutes existing shareholders and transfers some control. Debt funding provides contractual repayment and interest obligations, usually cheaper and non-dilutive if serviced, but increases financial risk in downturns. Advisers weigh cost of capital, dilution, covenant flexibility, balance-sheet gearing and market conditions when recommending an instrument mix.[1]
Common mistake: Judging debt as inherently 'safer' than equity; for the issuer, fixed obligations can make debt riskier in a downturn even though debt holders rank ahead on insolvency.
Raising capital
5. Primary versus secondary issues
A primary issue creates new shares and the proceeds flow to the company, expanding its capital base. A secondary issue, or vendor sale, involves existing shareholders selling their shares, with proceeds going to those sellers and no new capital for the company. Many offerings combine both. The distinction matters for dilution analysis, use-of-proceeds disclosure and how the offer is framed to investors.[1]
Common mistake: Assuming all IPO proceeds fund the business; vendor sales in an IPO return cash to selling shareholders and do not add resources to the issuer.
Raising capital
6. Rights issue mechanics and dilution
A rights issue offers new shares to existing shareholders in proportion to holdings, usually at a discount, protecting them from dilution if they exercise. Theoretical ex-rights price blends the old share price with the discounted new shares; the nil-paid rights themselves have tradable value. Shareholders who neither exercise nor sell suffer economic dilution because the discount lowers the earnings and value attributed to each existing share.[1]
Common mistake: Believing pro-rata rights issues never dilute anyone; they only prevent dilution for shareholders who fully exercise or sell their rights at fair value.
Raising capital
7. Private placement versus public offering
Placements place securities with a small number of selected investors, are faster and cheaper to execute, but can dilute existing holders who cannot participate and may raise scrutiny if done at steep discounts to allies. Public offerings reach the broad market, with fuller disclosure procedures and more regulatory process, suiting larger raises. Advisers match method to size, urgency, investor demand and shareholder protection considerations.[1]
Common mistake: Overlooking the governance dimension: placements to selected investors can raise related-party and minority-protection questions that a public offering avoids.
Raising capital
8. Purpose and content of offering documents
Offer documents such as prospectuses exist to give investors full and accurate disclosure of all information material to an investment decision: the business, financials, risk factors, management, use of proceeds and offer terms. Liability regimes attach to misleading or omitted material information. The disclosure philosophy is that an informed market prices risk itself, so the document must be complete and truthful rather than promotional.[1]
Common mistake: Treating disclosure as a marketing exercise; the standard is material completeness and accuracy, and omissions can be as actionable as false statements.
Getting listed
9. Underwriting: risk transfer and firm commitment economics
Under an underwriting arrangement the underwriter agrees to take up securities not subscribed by the public, transferring placement risk from the issuer for an underwriting fee. In effect the issuer is assured of the proceeds while the underwriter prices that risk into the offer. Sub-underwriting spreads the risk further. If an offer fails to attract subscriptions, the underwriter's obligation to subscribe crystallises, subject to any termination rights in the agreement.[1]
Common mistake: Thinking underwriting guarantees investor demand; it guarantees the issuer's proceeds, with the demand risk sitting with the underwriter instead.
Getting listed
10. Listing tiers: Mainboard and Catalist distinctions
SGX operates a Mainboard for more established issuers with quantitative entry gates, and Catalist, a sponsor-supervised market where quantitative criteria are lighter but a full sponsor must shepherd admission and ongoing compliance. The trade-off is a more rules-based route versus a more relationship-and-supervision-based route. Advisers advise on which market suits an issuer's scale, track record and cost appetite.[1]
Common mistake: Assuming Catalist is a lesser listing with weaker investor protections; the sponsor supervision model is a different control mechanism, not an absence of controls.
Getting listed
11. Role of the sponsor on Catalist
On Catalist, the continuing sponsor is a permanent gatekeeper: it assesses suitability at admission, advises the issuer on compliance, vets announcements and documents, and answers to SGX for lapses in issuer conduct. This makes sponsor selection a strategic decision, because the issuer and sponsor share responsibility for listing compliance quality, and a Catalist issuer must maintain a sponsor throughout its listing, so sponsor continuity is a standing compliance consideration.[1]
Common mistake: Treating the sponsor as a mere admission consultant; the sponsor's duties continue for the whole listing period and include ongoing compliance supervision.
Post-listing obligations and considerations
12. Continuous disclosure after listing
Listed status is not a one-off compliance event: issuers must keep the market informed of information likely to materially affect price or investor decisions, through timely announcements, periodic financial reporting and disclosures of material transactions. The rationale is a market operating on equal information. Advisers must build disclosure timing into deal execution, because leaking or late announcement of a live transaction is itself a compliance failure.[1]
Common mistake: Confusing continuous disclosure duties with one-time admission obligations; the heaviest compliance workload for many issuers falls after listing.
Post-listing obligations and considerations
13. Interested person transactions and shareholder protection
Transactions with directors, substantial shareholders or their associates create a conflict between the issuer and its controlling parties, so listing rules impose heightened treatment: independent valuation or review, shareholder approval often excluding the interested parties from voting, and specific disclosure. The design objective is to prevent controllers extracting value from the listed entity at minority shareholders' expense.[1]
Common mistake: Assessing a related-party deal only on commercial merits while ignoring the procedural protections; even a fairly priced deal must follow the required approval and disclosure process.
Post-listing obligations and considerations
14. Circulars and the shareholder approval process
Major transactions requiring shareholder approval must be put to shareholders with a circular containing sufficient information for an informed vote — transaction terms, rationale, financial effects, valuations and adviser opinions where required. Advisers draft and verify circular content. Approval thresholds and voting exclusions shape deal feasibility, so deal timelines should be planned around despatch, notice periods and polling logistics.[1]
Common mistake: Underestimating circular lead times; a deal negotiated quickly can still stall if the approval document cannot be despatched on a compliant timetable.
Overview of the Singapore Code on Take-overs and Mergers
15. The general offer obligation under the Take-overs Code
The Code's cornerstone is that anyone who acquires a stake crossing the prescribed trigger, or who in certain situations holds a controlling position, must make a general offer to all other shareholders for their shares. The rule exists because a person obtaining control should not profit from a control premium while leaving minorities trapped in a company whose character has changed.[1]
Common mistake: Treating the trigger as the only trigger; obligations can also arise from arrangements or understandings with others, not solely from one's own purchases.
Overview of the Singapore Code on Take-overs and Mergers
16. Concert parties and group attribution
Concert parties are persons who, by agreement or understanding, cooperate to obtain or consolidate control. The Code aggregates the shareholdings of a concert group when testing thresholds, preventing control from being assembled through multiple friendly holders just below any trigger. Certain relationships are presumed to be concerts unless rebutted. Mapping the concert group accurately is one of the adviser's most important early tasks.[1]
Common mistake: Analysing only one's own client's percentage; the Code looks at the combined position of the whole acting group.
Overview of the Singapore Code on Take-overs and Mergers
17. Offer price: highest price principle and equal treatment
The Code requires that an offeror, and its concert parties, do not buy at above the offer price during the offer period, or within the look-back window before the offer commences, without raising the offer to match, and that all shareholders of the same class receive equal terms. These principles stop offerors from quietly paying favourites more — including by snapping up shares shortly before or during the offer at prices other shareholders cannot access. The exact pre-offer time windows are set out in the Code and official study guide, so confirm the precise limits there.[1]
Common mistake: Forgetting that purchases by concert parties, not just the offeror itself, can force an offer price increase.
Overview of the Singapore Code on Take-overs and Mergers
18. The Code is rules-based but not legislation
The Take-overs and Mergers Code operates through general principles and rules administered and enforced by the Securities Industry Council, with day-to-day rulings handled by its Executive, rather than as a statute creating court-prosecuted offences in itself. The Council can impose sanctions such as cold-shouldering and public censure, while securities legislation provides separate criminal and civil mechanisms for related conduct. Advisers must respect the flexibility the principles-based regime allows, and the Council's discretion.[1]
Common mistake: Searching for a mandatory-offer 'loophole' the rules do not expressly forbid; the Council applies the Code's general principles and can rule against artificial structures.
Overview of the Singapore Code on Take-overs and Mergers
19. Conditions and schemes of arrangement versus offers
A takeover can proceed by contractual offer or by scheme of arrangement, a court-sanctioned compromise between the company and its shareholders. Each route has different approval mechanics, timelines and ability to attach conditions; offers can generally not be subject to conditions that depend fundamentally on the offeror's own judgment, because conditions must be capable of objective assessment and not undermine the offer's certainty.[1]
Common mistake: Treating schemes and offers as interchangeable in timeline and risk; scheme timetables involve court processes that a contractual offer does not.
Market conduct
20. Insider trading: the information connection requirement
Insider trading prohibitions target trading, or procuring trading, while connected with material non-public information, as well as tipping and recommending based on such information. Liability centres on possession of the information in the proscribed circumstances, not on profit; a loss-making insider trade can still breach the law. Corporate finance advisers are chronically exposed because their work generates deal information by definition.[1]
Common mistake: Assuming the prohibition requires profit or that only the person who received information directly is liable; tippees who trade are also caught.
Market conduct
21. Market manipulation: false trading and price rigging
Market conduct law prohibits creating a false or misleading appearance of active trading or the price of securities — through wash trades, matched orders, coordinated transactions without genuine change of beneficial ownership, or rigging a price to induce others. The mischief is deception of the market as a whole, distinct from insider trading, which abuses specific non-public information.[1]
Common mistake: Believing manipulation requires a successful price effect; the prohibited conduct is creating the misleading appearance, independent of whether outsiders actually reacted.
Market conduct
22. Disclosure of interests by directors and substantial shareholders
Directors and substantial shareholders of listed issuers must disclose their interests and changes in interests within statutory timeframes so the market can see who holds control and incentive alignments. Advisory teams handling deals involving directors or large holders must build these notification obligations into execution timetables, because a transaction may itself trigger disclosable changes across several parties simultaneously.[1]
Common mistake: Treating disclosure of interests as the company's task alone; the obligations fall on the director or shareholder personally, with consequences for their own lapses.
Ethics, codes and standards of professional conduct for corporate finance
23. Core ethical standards: integrity, objectivity and competence
Professional conduct standards for corporate finance advisers require honesty and integrity in all professional dealings, objectivity free from bias or undue influence, and maintenance of professional knowledge and skill adequate for the work undertaken. In practice these standards mean an adviser's analysis and opinions must be defensible on their merits and must not bend to fee pressure or client preference for a favourable answer.[1]
Common mistake: Equating ethics compliance with rule compliance; conduct standards catch conduct that is dishonourable or lacks independence even where no specific rule text is violated.
Ethics, codes and standards of professional conduct for corporate finance
24. Conflicts of interest and information barriers
Advisory firms routinely face conflicts: acting for both sides of a transaction, advising competing bidders, or holding positions in securities affected by their advice. Management tools include declining the engagement, disclosure and informed consent, and information barriers that segregate deal teams. The governing test is whether the adviser can act fairly for each client with impartiality protected in fact, not merely asserted.[1]
Common mistake: Assuming disclosure cures every conflict; some conflicts are so direct that only declining or robust structural separation resolves them.
Ethics, codes and standards of professional conduct for corporate finance
25. Confidentiality and its disclosure exceptions
Advisers owe clients strict confidentiality over non-public information, but the duty is not absolute. Disclosure is permissible with client consent, where the law compels it, or to protect the adviser's legitimate interests such as defending legal proceedings. In take-over work, confidentiality sits alongside market disclosure rules, so advisers must know when confidential information must, in fact, reach the market.[1]
Common mistake: Treating confidentiality as forbidding everything; compelled legal disclosure and properly consented disclosure are recognised exceptions.
Corporate finance practices and skills
26. Discounted cash flow valuation logic
A DCF values an asset as the present value of its expected future cash flows, discounted at a rate reflecting their risk. Key sensitivities are the cash flow forecasts, the terminal value assumption, which often dominates total value, and the discount rate. DCF expresses intrinsic value independent of current market sentiment, which makes it powerful for fairness opinions but highly assumption-dependent.[1]
Common mistake: Treating the DCF output as objective fact; modest changes in growth or discount assumptions can swing the valuation dramatically, so ranges and sensitivities are essential.
Corporate finance practices and skills
27. Comparable company multiples and their limits
Relative valuation benchmarks a company against peers using multiples such as price-to-earnings or enterprise-value-to-EBITDA, derived from trading comparables or precedent transactions. The technique is market-anchored and quick, but its reliability depends on genuine comparability of business mix, growth, risk and accounting treatment, and on whether market prices themselves are rational at the measurement date.[1]
Common mistake: Mechanically averaging multiples of dissimilar companies; differences in leverage, accounting policies and growth can make apparently similar peers materially non-comparable.
Corporate finance practices and skills
28. Reading financial statements for deal analysis
Deal analysis demands more than headline profits: advisers examine earnings quality, working capital movements, gearing and cash flow conversion, and normalise for one-off items. Ratios link the statements together — margins show operating performance, gearing shows financial risk, and cash flow reveals whether reported profits convert to money. This analytical base feeds both valuation and the risk sections of advisory documents.[1]
Common mistake: Valuing off reported earnings without normalisation; one-off gains, related-party charges and accounting policy choices can distort comparability between periods and targets.
Corporate finance practices and skills
29. Due diligence purpose and scoping
Due diligence is the systematic verification of facts material to a transaction: financial, legal, commercial, tax and operational. Its purpose is to confirm what is being bought, surface liabilities and inform price, conditions and warranty protection. Scoping follows risk — diligence depth concentrates on the matters most likely to change value or impose liabilities, and findings feed directly into deal structuring decisions.[1]
Common mistake: Viewing diligence as a box-ticking exercise; untested assumptions that later prove wrong are the classic source of post-deal value destruction and disputes.
Prevention of financial crimes
30. Customer due diligence and suspicious transaction reporting
Anti-money laundering practice requires identifying and verifying clients, understanding the purpose and intended nature of relationships, and scrutinising transactions for consistency with that knowledge, with enhanced measures for higher-risk situations. Where transactions give rise to suspicion of money laundering or terrorism financing, a suspicious transaction report must be filed with the authorities. Tipping off a customer about such a report is itself prohibited.[1]
Common mistake: Assuming AML obligations sit only with banks; advisers in corporate finance transactions handle funds flows and deal structures that can be exploited for laundering, so the duties apply to them too.
How to revise for RES 4
1. Map the nine syllabus domains to your current knowledge
Before studying content, list the nine RES 4 syllabus domains from the IBF examination page and rate your comfort with each from deal experience or study. Most first-time candidates are weakest on the Take-overs Code mechanics and market conduct law because day-to-day advisory work rarely requires reciting trigger and disclosure rules precisely. Let this map dictate your time allocation, not chapter length.
2. Master the Take-overs Code as a connected system, not isolated rules
Study the general offer obligation, concert parties, offer price discipline and Council powers as one logic: control changes must trigger an offer to everyone on equal terms. Draw a small decision tree starting from 'who is acting in concert?' and 'what is the aggregated position?' and practise applying it to shareholding patterns until threshold analysis becomes mechanical.
3. Drill market conduct and AML as pattern recognition
For insider trading, manipulation and suspicious transactions, build a mental checklist of elements: what information, whose possession, what trading conduct, what appearance created. Then rehearse short fact patterns classifying which prohibition is engaged. RES 4 questions in this area are typically scenario-based, so recognition speed matters more than reciting definitions.
4. Work through the official study guide end to end, then the updates
Registered candidates receive the official PDF study guide through the IBF Portal, with access expiring on exam day, so plan your reading within that window. Check the IBF study guide updates page first and read from the current version, since guides are revised to reflect regulatory change and stale third-party notes can mislead on trigger details and disclosure rules.
5. Convert valuation and deal skills into fast MCQ technique
Practise DCF logic, multiple application and financial statement red flags as one- or two-step questions with clean hypothetical numbers, mirroring MCQ pacing of 60 questions in 90 minutes. Preparing several worked examples, such as a rights issue dilution or an EV/EBITDA implied value, builds the arithmetic fluency needed to finish the paper comfortably.
6. Run timed mixed rehearsals and close gaps before booking
In the final phase, do timed mixed-question sets spanning all nine domains, log every wrong answer against its syllabus domain, and reread only those weak areas in the official guide. Book the exam only when your mixed-set accuracy is consistently above the published pass mark level, since RES 4 offers no exemptions and each attempt is a full sitting.
Test your understanding
These original learning scenarios are for revision; they are not official examination questions.
1. An investor and a fund it regularly coordinates with on shareholdings each buy shares in a listed target. The investor's stake rises to 27% and the fund's to 24%. Neither holder alone crosses the level that would trigger a mandatory general offer. Has an obligation to make a general offer arisen?
Show answer and explanation
Yes, likely so. The Take-overs Code aggregates the holdings of concert parties, and regular coordination on shareholding matters indicates they are acting in concert. Combined, they hold 51% of the target, well above any single-holder trigger, so control has been consolidated through the group. The adviser should have mapped the concert group before execution and sought an advance ruling from the Executive if the position was genuinely uncertain.[1]
2. During an offer period, an offer at S$2.00 per share is open. The offeror's wholly owned subsidiary, acting on its own initiative without the offeror's central deal team knowing, buys 200,000 shares in the market at S$2.15. What must happen to the offer?
Show answer and explanation
The offer price must be raised to at least S$2.15 for all shareholders. The Code's highest price principle treats purchases above the offer price by the offeror or its concert parties during the offer as requiring the offer to be improved to match. A wholly owned subsidiary is part of the offeror's group, so internal ignorance of the purchase does not help. This illustrates why offer-period dealing controls must cover all group entities.[1]
3. An adviser working late sees a draft announcement that its client, a listed company, will receive a takeover bid at a substantial premium. The adviser mentions the possibility to a friend, who buys shares and loses S$3,000 when the deal collapses. Which analysis is correct?
Show answer and explanation
The adviser and likely the friend have engaged in insider trading. The adviser possessed material non-public information obtained from a professional connection, and tipping and dealing on that basis are prohibited regardless of outcome; the friend, as a tippee who traded, is also exposed. Loss of S$3,000 is irrelevant because liability does not depend on profit, and the confidentiality lapse compounds a serious professional conduct breach that should also be reported internally.[1]
Frequently asked questions
Who needs to pass RES 4, and does passing it give me a licence to practise corporate finance?
RES 4 is the Rules, Ethics and Skills module mapped to the regulated activity of advising on corporate finance within the CMFAS framework. Passing the relevant examination modules is a prerequisite step, but after completion candidates must lodge a notification with the Monetary Authority of Singapore before carrying out regulated activities. The exam itself does not confer a licence or professional designation.[1]
What is the RES 4 exam format, duration and passing standard?
Per the IBF examination details, RES 4 consists of 60 computer-based multiple-choice questions taken in 1.5 hours, with a pass mark of 75%. Results display on screen immediately after the exam, and result slips can be printed from the IBF Portal account from the next business day. Confirm current details at registration in case administration changes.[1]
Are there any exemptions or ways to shorten the RES 4 requirement?
No. IBF states there are no exemptions for RES 4 because it is a Rules, Ethics and Skills examination. Unlike product knowledge modules, where exemptions may exist under MAS notices, Rules, Ethics and Skills modules must be sat by everyone pursuing the mapped activity, so plan your preparation for a full sitting.[1]
How do I get the official RES 4 study guide, and how long can I use it?
Candidates who successfully register for an examination are given access to a PDF version of the study guide through their IBF Portal account. Access expires on the day of the registered examination, so schedule your reading within that window. IBF also publishes a list of study guide updates, and you should verify you are using the latest version before sitting.[2]
Is RES 4 the same as RES 1A, and which CMFAS modules overlap with it?
They are different modules. RES 1A covers Rules, Ethics and Skills for Securities Exchange Dealers, while RES 4 is specific to corporate finance, covering raising capital, listings, the Take-overs and Mergers Code and corporate finance advisory practices. Do not study a neighbouring module's guide for RES 4 topics; use the RES 4 study guide, whose syllabus matches the nine domains listed on IBF's examination page.[1]
Official sources and review notes
Public IBF and SCI sources were checked on 16 September 2026 for syllabus scope and assessment details, with additional primary references where listed. References identify the relevant syllabus or subject source; explanations and examples are original teaching material. This guide selects important concepts and does not replace the full official study text. Confirm the applicable edition and any updates with the administrator before your assessment.