Distressed Securities: Analyzing and Evaluating Market Potential and Investment Risk

Rating:
Summary: Empirical-driven research well-presented
Review: A no-nonsense, cut'n dry overview of Mr. Altman's extensive empirical research on the distressed securities market. His statistical procedures and index calculations offer a nice illustrative summary of this niche market, albeit his sample size is quite limited and a handful of his models are rendered inconclusive. However, this book is geared for someone having a keen interest in distressed securities, in particular. Definitely not for someone who wishes to gain an introductory understanding of general finance. Personally, the one deficiency in the book is its dryness.

Rating:
Summary: Relevant but dated
Review: Very good empirical material from the early stages of the market. The book is dated though since it has not been updated post the great increase in the size of markets. New classes of distressed coporates (telecoms & possibly future current dotcoms ?), new markets (Japan/Asia), new value extraction methods (CBOs) etc. which have materialised in the past few years need to be addressed as well, both in terms of market developments and further empirical evidence.

Rating:
Summary: Good but dated
Review: When I looked at the publication date above it said: "Paperback - 248 pages 2 edition (February 1999). In fact this book was actually published in 1991, making it 10 years old. If you were reading this book in say 1992 or 1993 it would be really relevant, but not in 2001. The basic information still remains useful and interesting, but the data summaries that date from 1989 are just not relevant anymore. ... I probaly would not have bought this book and would have looked for something fresher.