Corporate Finance For Dummies
Corporate Finance For Dummies book cover

Corporate Finance For Dummies

Paperback – December 26, 2012

Price
$10.82
Format
Paperback
Pages
368
Publisher
For Dummies
Publication Date
ISBN-13
978-1118412794
Dimensions
7.2 x 0.8 x 9 inches
Weight
1.5 pounds

Description

From the Inside Flap Score your highest in corporate finance? Easy. The math, formulas, and problems associated with corporate finance can be daunting to the uninitiated. With easy-to-understand explanations and examples, Corporate Finance For Dummies introduces you to the practices of determining an operating budget, calculating future cash flow, and analyzing scenarios in a friendly, unintimidating way. Corporate Finance 101 — get a plain-English intro to corporate finance, the role it plays, and the people and organizations that utilize it Corporate Finance 101 — get a plain-English intro to corporate finance, the role it plays, and the people and organizations that utilize it That pile of numbers — make sense of reading financial statements with easy-to-understand explanations of what simple metrics are and why they're used That pile of numbers — make sense of reading financial statements with easy-to-understand explanations of what simple metrics are and why they're used The price tags of business — find out how to evaluate capital assets, stocks, bonds, and derivatives — all the major assets you want to know how to value The price tags of business — find out how to evaluate capital assets, stocks, bonds, and derivatives — all the major assets you want to know how to value Risky business — discover the 4-1-1 of risk and more cutting-edge topics in corporate finance, like futures and options Risky business — discover the 4-1-1 of risk and more cutting-edge topics in corporate finance, like futures and options Manage assets and capital — learn how to evaluate corporate financial performance, forecast future financial performance, and assess the performance of other corporations for potential mergers and acquisitions Manage assets and capital — learn how to evaluate corporate financial performance, forecast future financial performance, and assess the performance of other corporations for potential mergers and acquisitions Open the book and find: The difference between finance and accounting The difference between finance and accounting How to raise money selling equity or debt How to raise money selling equity or debt Plain-English explanations of corporate finance jargon Plain-English explanations of corporate finance jargon Metrics analysis to make financial statements useful Metrics analysis to make financial statements useful The scoop on debt analytics The scoop on debt analytics Your best bond bets Your best bond bets How to measure values of derivatives How to measure values of derivatives Ways to identify costs of capital Ways to identify costs of capital Things you need to know to understand international finance Things you need to know to understand international finance Learn to: Make sense of difficult concepts Make sense of difficult concepts Supplement your course work and boost your confidence Supplement your course work and boost your confidence Score your highest in a corporate finance course Score your highest in a corporate finance course Score your highest in corporate finance? Easy. The math, formulas, and problems associated with corporate finance can be daunting to the uninitiated. With easy-to-understand explanations and examples, Corporate Finance For Dummies introduces you to the practices of determining an operating budget, calculating future cash flow, and analyzing scenarios in a friendly, unintimidating way. Corporate Finance 101 — get a plain-English intro to corporate finance, the role it plays, and the people and organizations that utilize it Corporate Finance 101 — get a plain-English intro to corporate finance, the role it plays, and the people and organizations that utilize it That pile of numbers — make sense of reading financial statements with easy-to-understand explanations of what simple metrics are and why they're used That pile of numbers — make sense of reading financial statements with easy-to-understand explanations of what simple metrics are and why they're used The price tags of business — find out how to evaluate capital assets, stocks, bonds, and derivatives — all the major assets you want to know how to value The price tags of business — find out how to evaluate capital assets, stocks, bonds, and derivatives — all the major assets you want to know how to value Risky business — discover the 4-1-1 of risk and more cutting-edge topics in corporate finance, like futures and options Risky business — discover the 4-1-1 of risk and more cutting-edge topics in corporate finance, like futures and options Manage assets and capital — learn how to evaluate corporate financial performance, forecast future financial performance, and assess the performance of other corporations for potential mergers and acquisitions Manage assets and capital — learn how to evaluate corporate financial performance, forecast future financial performance, and assess the performance of other corporations for potential mergers and acquisitions Open the book and find: The difference between finance and accounting The difference between finance and accounting How to raise money selling equity or debt How to raise money selling equity or debt Plain-English explanations of corporate finance jargon Plain-English explanations of corporate finance jargon Metrics analysis to make financial statements useful Metrics analysis to make financial statements useful The scoop on debt analytics The scoop on debt analytics Your best bond bets Your best bond bets How to measure values of derivatives How to measure values of derivatives Ways to identify costs of capital Ways to identify costs of capital Things you need to know to understand international finance Things you need to know to understand international finance Learn to: Make sense of difficult concepts Make sense of difficult concepts Supplement your course work and boost your confidence Supplement your course work and boost your confidence Score your highest in a corporate finance course Score your highest in a corporate finance course Michael Taillard, PhD, MBA, owns and operates OPII Schools, an award-winning national private school and tutoring company designed as a philanthropic experiment in macroeconomic cash flows as a form of urban renewal. Read more

Features & Highlights

  • Score your highest in corporate finance
  • The math, formulas, and problems associated with corporate finance can be daunting to the uninitiated.
  • Corporate Finance For Dummies
  • introduces you to the practices of determining an operating budget, calculating future cash flow, and scenario analysis in a friendly, un-intimidating way that makes comprehension easy.
  • Corporate Finance For Dummies
  • covers everything you'll encounter in a course on corporate finance, including accounting statements, cash flow, raising and managing capital, choosing investments; managing risk; determining dividends; mergers and acquisitions; and valuation.
  • Serves as an excellent resource to supplement coursework related to corporate finance
  • Serves as an excellent resource to supplement coursework related to corporate finance
  • Gives you the tools and advice you need to understand corporate finance principles and strategies
  • Gives you the tools and advice you need to understand corporate finance principles and strategies
  • Provides information on the risks and rewards associated with corporate finance and lending
  • Provides information on the risks and rewards associated with corporate finance and lending
  • With easy-to-understand explanations and examples,
  • Corporate Finance For Dummies
  • is a helpful study guide to accompany your coursework, explaining the tough stuff in a way you can understand.

Customer Reviews

Rating Breakdown

★★★★★
30%
(148)
★★★★
25%
(123)
★★★
15%
(74)
★★
7%
(35)
23%
(113)

Most Helpful Reviews

✓ Verified Purchase

A pretty good book on corporate finance

Corporate finance is a vast subject as it overlaps with many technical areas including accounting, micro and macroeconomics, capital markets, and investment management. Your regular corporate finance textbook approaches 800 pages, weighs several pounds, and costs $150. Michael Taillard made an effort to render this vast subject accessible in an easy to read For Dummies format for about a tenth of the price of a regular textbook.

Overall, Taillard has succeeded in producing a body of knowledge on corporate finance accessible to the layperson. Of course, he had to cut some corners relative to a full-fledged textbook. For instance, chapter 13 on valuating derivatives is rudimentary. It purposefully avoids dealing with the Black Scholes option model and any of its advanced successors. This whole chapter entirely avoids the complex underlying mathematics with derivatives. And, that's a good thing. In other areas, Taillard covers well surprisingly theoretical concepts such as CAPM and APT.

Taillard covers a lot of topics elegantly and teaches numerous types of interesting ratios and metrics.

The small reservation I do have is I did find either errors or inconsistencies in some of his ratio presentations. For instance, he defines Net profit margin as Net income x 100/Sales instead of the usual Net income/Sales (pg.83). Yet on the next few pages, he will use the correct formulas for ROA, Operating income margin, and Gross profit margin (by avoiding the multiplying by a 100). On page 94, he defines a strange ratio: Equity Multiplier as the ratio of a company's assets that stockholders own. And, he calculates it as Assets/Equity. Meanwhile, if he wanted to calculate what he meant it should be: Equity/Assets. On page 96, he shows a definition of Financial Leverage that is plain wrong. Financial Leverage is typically defined as a Debt/Equity ratio that is balance sheet driven. His definition has nothing to do with this concept. Also, on page 105 he defines a ratio that is not meaningful for measuring the financial condition of a bank: Deposits/Capital. He views a bank's large deposit base as a risk because of potential runs on banks. However, with FDIC insurance the runs on banks have moved away from their deposit base to their wholesale borrowings (commercial paper). The recent financial crisis was associated with a liquidity crisis when the financial intermediaries could not roll over their commercial paper. By contrast, deposits (mostly insured) are a far safer source of funding for banks.

In summary, this is a good book on the subject despite the few errors I uncovered. If anyone wants to drill down a bit more on any technical subject, it is really easy to jump off from the book into Wikipedia.
37 people found this helpful
✓ Verified Purchase

I Love Dummies!!!

After I got out of the Army, I used my GI Bill to get into NYU and graduated with a BS in Business Admin. Love it and had a great time, however, I decided to go into the brokerage business. I had a terrible time trying to assimilate into the industry.

I really wanted to appeal to corporate clients and not necessarily retail consumers. I really wish I had this booklet back then...I would would of jumped through so many hurdles so faster. Without a doubt, I would recommend this book to anyone in the finance industry, whether you are a licensed broker or financial adviser, this book will help you to understand the playing field much better and will also talk the talk with your future clientele.

Even if the sales aspect isn't for you (not going for your Series #7 or #63) this book will still help you grasp the fundamentals of the structures of a corporate climate. It's really a wealth of information if you are looking to get into the field or a major head-start if you are in school.
What I really like about the book the most is that it just has a down-to-earth (no nonsense) feel to the layout AND it supplies you with a ton of links and other sources that will take you a bit further.

Well, I hope that I helped you with my evaluation. Whether you choose this book or not, I really wish you well.

If my comments have helped you, please click the 'yes' button below, so that it can help other viewers.

All the Best to
You and Yours,

RL Miles
American Express Adviser, RET.
33 people found this helpful
✓ Verified Purchase

I think it is a great starting point from which one can launch more in-depth ...

Very efficient book. It moves across large swaths of content in a fast manner by reducing the material to the essentials and moving on. It is not intended for in-depth study of any particular subject, but rather to give a broad overview of how all components of economics, government, and corporations all interlink together. Overall, I think it is a great starting point from which one can launch more in-depth analysis on any of the topics covered and a great reference to see how that topic connects with the others in the grand scheme of things.
18 people found this helpful
✓ Verified Purchase

investpedia is far better than this book

I was expecting this book to explain things in details but I found it giving you overall of everything where you need to google to have more details on almost every chapter. In my opinion, investpedia is far better than this book.
12 people found this helpful
✓ Verified Purchase

Helped me pass my CIA exam

I got this book to understand finance basics so I could pass my CIA exam. I passed (yay!) and have a much better understanding of Finance than I used to. I have the book in my cube at work and refer to it quite often. There are a few pages with just ratios on them and it helped me “see” what the ratios were. For example, I was able to “see” that all the TO ratios had “average x” on the bottom and either sales/cogs/purchases on top and I was like OHHHH DUHHHHHHHH. This book was really helpful. Definitely get it if you’re looking to get an overall understanding of Finance.
11 people found this helpful
✓ Verified Purchase

very informative

I bought this for someone just starting out in corporate finance. They have a degree in math but didn't take any finance courses so weren't familiar with all the lingo. She found the book very helpful. Now she knows what they are talking about when she attends company meetings.
6 people found this helpful
✓ Verified Purchase

Fine Overview (of many topics)

Mr. Taillard does a great job of pulling together a large array of concepts into concise chapters. If you're looking for a basic user's guide to financial statements, an overview of portfolio theory, or the very basics of assessing corporate performance, you'll find it all here (and more). Taillard peppers his writing with humor, speaks in plain English, and avoids complex formulas and numbers. But in the end it's still Corporate Finance, and will take work to understand.

The book covers a large number of topics. So you won't dig deeply into any, but you'll become familiar with the terms and the basic concepts.

Consequently, this would be a handy resource if you're a non-finance person seeking a basic understanding of corporate finance, or if you're an expert in one discipline seeking a basic understanding of another.

If however, you need to learn this material for your profession, consider a book more targeted to one specific discipline, such as "Analysis for Financial Management" by Robert Higgins (for example).
6 people found this helpful
✓ Verified Purchase

Decent Book with Some Glaring Shortcomings

It's hard to believe that a book designed to teach you how to read financial statements doesn't actually include any examples of financial statements. This book is ok, but it doesn't include any actual balance sheets, income statements, or statements of cash flows. I had to print the annual reports of real companies to supplement this book. That's the only real way to make sense of the ratios it describes.
2 people found this helpful
✓ Verified Purchase

Four Stars

Used for college Finance class and it helped a great deal.
2 people found this helpful
✓ Verified Purchase

Arrived quickly and helped me get through the remainder of ...

Arrived quickly and helped me get through the remainder of my course. Wish there were more explanations to the equations for PV and FV in it though
2 people found this helpful