Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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14 of 14 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Valuable insights, useful commentary, and professionally written., October 21, 2005
Like many of us, perhaps you've owned some bonds that have fallen into junk status or worse, distress/bankruptcy. In most cases, did you throw up your arms either selling at a loss or confused by smallprint mail solicitations? Stephen Moyer is an absolute pro and de-mystifies what some may think of as a blackbox only understood by investment specialists, asset pirates, and/or bankruptcy lawyers.
Conversely, if you are a professional and seeking to augment your understanding, Moyer provides insightful commentary on areas like negotiation leverage points, key area to control, legal bounds of control, pre & post-bankruptcy valuation approaches, and comparisons to real deals done recently in the marketplace. Most of his examples are from 1998-2003, and he tries to use contemporary issues to highlight arguments. Unfortunately, you will not find the most recent Bankruptcy Code reforms which commenced Oct 17, 2005. For instance, he states on page 77 that management can "...extend the [bankruptcy] exclusivity period virtually indefinitely...", which today is essentially limited to 18 months. Although a shortcoming to the book, any professional investor would have access to materials to become up-to-date on the recent reforms.
Moyer's CV reads long: Stanford Law, Chicago MBA, CFA, CPA, and Drexel Lambert heritage. Obviously, he knows what he is talking about. His writing interests do seem to be lawyer-ly; for instance, he spends an inordinate amount of time explaining issues around confidentiality agreements and duties. But, I appreciated his clear and concise style and sentences. No arrogance in his style nor is he trying to sell his current firm.
Excellent book. Strongly recommend despite the price.
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11 of 11 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Best in class, July 16, 2005
This is the best book on distressed investments that I have read. As a distressed debt analyst at a hedge fund, I found Mr. Moyer's book to be relatively comprehensive yet extremely readable. An excellent primer on the topic. I recommend it highly to anyone starting out in the field.
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12 of 13 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A Complete Introduction , November 1, 2005
The premise of this book is really quite simple.
Identify securities (bonds, stocks or whatever) from companies that are in trouble. Buy these securities when other investors are ignoring or even selling them. Then when the company gets turned around, you can make a fortune. What you don't want to do is buy these securities only to see the companies go out of business so that your securities are now completely worthless.
As you might guess from the title, this book is about how to analyze distressed companies that offer this potential investment path. It covers virtually every aspect of finding such companies, determining if the proposed investment is feasible, explains the differences in the company going through one of the various bankruptcy procedures, the legal and financial due diligence issues, and more. The final result is a set of basic investment strategies and analytical techniques, complete with case studies and referrences to numerous real-world examples to emphasize important concepts and critical issues.
Along with the book is a companion web site that offers additional information, checklists, sample letters, and more.
This book is a complete introduction to this new and emerging field.
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