Customer Reviews

Business Analysis and Valuation: Using Financial Statements, Text and Cases

5 star:		(9)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

This review applies to the edition WITH CASES. This isn't recommended for anyone who is just starting out with choosing investments. Beginners might be better off with a more general overview of financial statement analysis (FSA) like Higgins' "Analysis of Financial Statements" or Fraser and Omriston's "Understanding Financial Statements".

This was one of two textbooks used in a financial statement analysis course I took for my MBA. Most chapters are down-to-earth and as a whole the book is well-written.

The other text we used was Penman's "Financial Statement Analysis and Security Valuation" which was also a great resource as far as gaining a basic understanding of the mechanics of financial statements and how to build a valuation model.

I contrast the two books because while Penman provides a run-down of several different models analysts can use (and does a good job of arguing for the Residual Income Model of valuation model as being the best), Palepu delves into the implications of companies' choices of accounting methods and provides more insight into what different kinds of businesses should look like in terms of their financial statements.

The cases at the end of each chapter add a lot of value to the text because they get students to focus on the specific issues detailed in each chapter. By picking apart different companies' financial statements we learned to use financial statements to assess the success or failure of companies' efforts to carry out their business strategies.

I rate it "Good - 4 stars"

This book is also a bestseller in Japan. Here someone called it "The only textbook now available that broadly explains accounting figures in the valuation model of the firm". This is a good book for beginners. Although the contents might be somewhat easy, the order in which it is written is very meaningful. You will probably have read everything in this book somewhere else, but certainly not in this order ! The importance of the ideas in this book go beyond its contents !!

This is a review of the Kindle edition of the textbook rather than the content of the book itself. The Kindle edition does NOT include the cases, even though it's offered as a digital copy of the printed version that DOES include the cases.

Amazon's customer service was very helpful and prompt in issuing a refund for the Kindle copy. So, overall, two stars for the error in offering the Kindle book as equivalent to the printed version, and five stars to Customer Service for their assistance.

This book looks at more than financials when analyzing the financial situation of a business. It makes more sense to incorporate the strategy of a business, and this book provides a good framework for doing that.

This one was required for my Capella Online MBA. The book has Business Analysis and Valuation explained in a simpler way.

Needed an older version of the text for class and this was perfect. Order got here way before I expected it to.

A very good book but the book came up short for not mentioning the case of Computer Associates former executives for jiggering their financial statements to push up stock prices and paying themselves over $1.1 billion in stock options which Computer Associates later filed a lawsuit against these executives, asking for those shares back or the case of Satyam where the author of the book was sitting on the board of Satyam but failed to practice/implement the merit of transparent corporate governance that he has been preaching at Harvard Business School.

The book is in really good condition and the price is relatively low. I only paid 3 dollars more and got it in 3 days, including a weekend.

This book was for a financial analysis class which I took. I strongly recommend it to anyone who wishes to learn about financial and business analysis.

It's a good book for case studies kind of understanding on accounts and finance valuation.