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12 of 12 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars
MYSTIFIED not demystified, February 13, 2007
This review is from: Corporate Finance Demystified (Paperback)
I am a very experience small business person. I picked up this text to obtain an overview of more advanced corporate finance as a precursor to more intensive study. I found the text failed for my purposes.
While the text is promoted as a self-teaching guide, this is not, in my opinion a beginner book. I ended chapters more confused than when I started (NOT due to the complexity of the material or my inability but due to the poor text). For example, there is no glossary to quickly look-up new terms as one might expect for a self-study guide. Far too much of the book is made up of multiple choice "self-tests" in each chapter with only a list of the correct multiple choice answers in the back of the book (no explanations).
An example of the issues with the book is in the fairly basic, Chapter 3. Chapter 3 covers financial statements and apparently corporate taxes (all in six, light format, pages). The chapter introduces basic balance sheets and cash flow statements. The text then discusses taxes but does not really explain why tax rate tiers vary according to corporate income, whether the rates indicated are typical, nor even why taxes are discussed fairly in-depth (I speak relatively here since I generally found little depth in the text) in a basic overview of simple financial statements. The text then sharply transitions in the same chapter to Cash Flow From Assets where several formulas as acronyms are introduced without fully explaining the acronyms (some you can figure out, some remain a msytery). (Again, there is no glossary, and the index self-refers to the acronym itself.) Total coverage of the topic--about 6 pages of text including the example balance sheets and tax tables followed by four pages of "test questions."
Each chapter ends with a self-test presumably to test knowledge. Again, Chapter 3 is an example. I created an Excel spreadsheet on my own to work some of the problems (I really do want to learn this material). However, the questions ask about non-existent information (referring to 2004 figures when the text has examples from 2006-2007). (This may seem like a simple typographical error but is confusing since the answer explanation does not explain the answer. You are left guessing the answer and then trying to decipher both the question and the applying (hopefully) analysis skills). Then, a question introduces marginal tax rate as a question but is never explained in the text. The index, again no glossary, refers to the question itself as the explanation (for comparison, Wikipedia gives a clear, seven paragraph analysis of marginal tax rate).
I had high hopes for this text and was committed to the topic. I was very disappointed. Since I am unfamiliar with the material, the evident errors make me question the quality of the rest of the material (i.e., if the errors are clear in some sections, how can I, as a novice, trust the materials I am unfamiliar with--for example formulas and comparisons?)
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4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars
A sometimes helpful supplement to other sources, April 20, 2008
This review is from: Corporate Finance Demystified (Paperback)
This book attempts to cover, more or less, the content of a typical introductory course in corporate/managerial finance. While the cover claims to "cover all key concepts of corporate finance" and that it contains "clear discussion of all the complex issues," it fails on both counts. Most, but not all, key concepts are covered, and due to the length of the book, many of the more complicated concepts only have a page or two devoted to them. The book assumes that one already has a basic knowledge of accounting and mid-level algebra, and to a lesser extent, microeconomics and macroeconomics. I am a little weak on the math angle, and the book has a habit of displaying a formula that isn't used or explained until several pages later in the book. The quizzes themselves are multiple choice, "A" through "D," but the answer key only gives the correct letter choice. It does not explain how or why any given answer has been arrived at, which is very frustrating if the book hasn't given adequate coverage or explanations of certain functions, which is often.
The book gives generic instructions on how to use a financial calculator to solve some of its problems, but you'll need to dig into your calculator's manual, as the generic instructions were different enough that I usually couldn't directly follow them.
As another reviewer pointed out, there are definite errors in the quiz questions, where it will refer to non-existent information, and one has to guess what part of what chart or figure it might really be referring to. I also believe that sometimes the answer key for a quiz will give the wrong answer, say "A" when the answer is really "C." Unfortunately, the book is published by McGraw-Hill, which, in my experience, goes out of its way to be unhelpful and unresponsive. One can navigate to the Business section of McGraw-Hill's website, go to contacts, e-mail the address given for errata requests, several times, and enjoy deafening silence. Other publishers often print errata on their websites to begin with. I don't think McGraw-Hill stands behind their books, and I think it shows in the quality of their offerings.
"Corporate Finance Demystified" is something you can learn from, but much of it is confusing slog until things begin to fall into place (and not everything does), and you will need to seek out alternative sources of information to understand what "Corporate Finance Demystified" often fails to fully explain.
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4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Good for review of the topic, June 10, 2007
This review is from: Corporate Finance Demystified (Paperback)
I am reviewing Corporate Finance, which I first took a year ago, in preparation for an advanced course that I will soon take. This book is good for my purposes. It is concise and clear, yet still often takes the time to explain, elaborate, and interpret information. However, the presentation is a little bit too concise for an initial presentation, and there are some typos in the quizzes and examples--better proofreading is needed. If you're looking for a fuller explanation, I have found that the textbooks by Stephen Ross are good (eg Fundamentals of Corporate Finance--he has several similarly titled books--the above named is for the first course for undergrad finance majors).
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