Principles of Corporate Finance(R) + Student CD + Corporate Governance Trade Book + Standard & Poor's + Ethics in Finance PowerWeb

Rating:
Summary: Principles of Corporate Finance(R) + Student CD + Corporate
Review: Brealey/Myers Principles of Corporate Finance is the worldwide leading text that describes the theory and practice of corporate finance. Throughout the book the authors show how managers use financial theory to solve practical problems and as a way of learning how to respond to change by showing not just how but why companies and management act as they do. The text is comprehensive, authoritative, and modern and yet the material is presented at a common sense level. The discussions and illustrations are unique due to the depth of detail blended with a distinct sense of humor for which the book is well known and highly regarded. This text is a valued reference for thousands of practicing financial managers.
Part I. Value 1. Finance and the Financial Manager 2. Present Value and the Opportunity Cost of Capital 3. How to Calculate Present Values 4. The Value of Common Stocks 5. Why Net Present Value Leads to Better Investment Decisions Than Other Criteria 6. Making Investment Decisions with the Net Present Value Rule Part II. Risk 7. Introduction to Risk, Return, and the Opportunity Cost of Capital 8. Risk and Return 9. Capital Budgeting and Risk Part III. Practical Problems in Capital Budgeting 10. A Project is Not a Black Box 11. Where Positive Net Present Values Come From 12. Making Sure Managers Maximize NPV Part IV. Financing Decisions and Market Efficiency 13. Corporate Financing and the Six Lessons of Market Efficiency 14. An Overview of Corporate Financing 15. How Corporations Issue Securities Part V. Dividend Policy and Capital Structure 16. The Dividend Controversy 17. Does Debt Policy Matter? 18. How Much Should a Firm Borrow? 19. Financing and Valuation Part VI. Options 20. Understanding Options 21. Valuing Options 22. Real Options 23. Warrants and Convertibles Part VII. Debt Financing 24. Valuing Debt 25. The Many Different Kinds of Debt 26. Leasing Part VIII. Risk Management 27. Managing Risk 28. Managing International Risks Part IX. Financial Planning and Short-Term Financial Management 29. Financial Analysis and Planning 30. Short-Term Financial Planning 31. Cash Management 32. Credit Management Part X. Mergers, Corporate Control, and Governance 33. Mergers 34. Control, Governance, and Financial Architecture Part XI. Conclusions 35. Conclusion: What We Do and Do Not Know About Finance

Rating:
Summary: Find another book!
Review: I am an MBA student with no financial background (having received my BS in a completely different field), this was the required text for my Corporate Finance class and it left me so confused I had to withdraw from the class so as not to ruin my GPA. The text is of no value to students like myself that need to learn the basics in order to understand what the authors are talking about. Surely there's a better book out there somewhere for Professors to select for their students.

Rating:
Summary: Horrible book
Review: I don't understand how anyone could appreciate this text. It sounds like the good reviews were written by professionals hired by the publisher. Their reviews lead me to believe that they've never picked up another Finance book to compare.

I have taken several finance and accounting classes in my M.B.A. program, and I received an "A" in all of them. This book confused me after 2 chapters. They take what I belive to be "simple" concepts and make them extremely difficult to understand. I have had to re-read many pages to figure out how they came to their conclusions because they don't do a very good job of explaining themselves.

For me, this book is a waste of time. Unfortunately, I have to read it for a required class. For someone who has never taken a finance class, this book will probably discourage them from entering the world of finance (or from taking any additional classes).

Come on, professors. Wake up and choose another book!




Rating:
Summary: Not recommended for students
Review: Let's just say this book is one reason I graduated with a degree in history rather than economics.

If I were an economics professor this book would make me worry about my job security, since the use of this book tends to scare students away from what truly is a beautiful, captivating discipline.

Rating:
Summary: A Miserable Excuse for a Textbook
Review: Perhaps for finance graduate students this book is appropriate but for the rest of us reasonably intelligent folks this book makes no sense at all.

Simple concepts should be explained and then used as building blocks for more complex ones; this book starts complex, the authors then rant about whatever they like or don't like, and then go on to something else even more complex. All the while leaving the reader befuddled about what these guys were talking about in the first place.

I suspect they're doing some grandstanding, trying to impress us with their intelligence. All right I'm impressed, now how about teaching me finance?

Professors, have mercy on your students. Use a text that offers clarity and supplements classroom lectures; this book does neither.


Rating:
Summary: Not for beginners !!
Review: Studied this in Corporate Finance class in MBA - instructor was a big fan of this book and mentioned it is directed to beginners. Once I start reading the book, language is good but the structure and the layout of the chapters are extremely bad. Get a book on the basics and dont take this book as the only resource for your corporate finance studies.

Rating:
Summary: a stuffy sloppy book
Review: The authors explanations on the concept of opportunity cost of capital of an investment, a central concept of standard finance, are so sloppy and confusing, starting from the first pages of their book, that one wonders if they clearly understand themselves the simple probabilistic model underlying standard finance. The fundamental fact of finance, which states that between two securities with the same expected future value investors will pay more for that with lesser variability, is barely mentioned after about 200 pages in the legend to a figure. It is presented as inescapably logical, which it is not. In short this book gives a long and somewhat stuffy presentation of conventional finance but will be very difficult to a reader that really wants to understand finance.

Rating:
Summary: Good at some things, but poor at others
Review: There should be two categories for reviews of this book. One is for those are looking for a review or reference and one for those who are learning the material for the first time. This review takes the latter perspective. If this is your first time learning the material, this book is pretty good at some things and pretty awful at others. My rating of 3 stars is an average score of 2 main categories of corporate finance
- Project Investment Decision (NPV/ Capital Budgeting/Project Valuation/ Real Options) - 5 Stars - The book does a very good job here. This is somewhat mechanical and by doing problems, one can understand and master this important material on one's own.
- Capital Structure (obtaining the money for these investments, paying dividends, and how these decisions about debt/ equity affect the value of the firm) - 2 stars. The book does provide some intuition for these economic concepts, but overall the coverage is poor. The problems at end of the chapters are poor and do not drill in these important concepts. I found Donald Chew's New Corporate Finance to be an excellent complement. By reading this collection of articles one can easily grasp how these academic concepts are used in the real world.

Rating:
Summary: Very Disappointing
Review: This book deals with a subject that is not trivial. The authors keep on making 'witty' remarks along the text that only make the topics more difficult to understand, by diverting your attention from what is discussed. They try to humor the reader, mistankingly assuming that this will make understanding easier - and I assure you, it does not. Does anyone reading this kind of book need to be reminded that there are no simple ways of making money in the stock market? I don't think so...

Another annoying feature is that most numerical examples are just thrown at the reader, without much explanation as to how the results were obtained. Sometimes, the explanation to their reasoning is done in very small print. I bet that if all the dumb comments and remarks were removed, there would be a lot more space to better explain the examples in the book.

I suggest giving Brigham and Ehrhardt's "Financial Management : Theory and Practice" a glance before considering this book. They offer a much better approach to Corporate Finance than these comedian wanna-bes.

Rating:
Summary: Not a book for Finance newcomers
Review: This book is good, but only for people who know at least some Finance before they read it. Believe me, I have taken Corporate Finance at the MBA level before, it's not an easy book to read.