A Practical Guide to Corporate Finance: Breaking the Financial Ice

This textbook offers an approachable guide to all key concepts within corporate finance. Emphasizing the use of common sense rather than number-crunching models, it provides a compact, easy to read experience for any reader, practitioners and students alike, whatever their background. A Practical Guide to Corporate Finance begins with the basics of how to read financial statements and how to estimate future cash flows. It also includes a guide to subjects such as capital budgeting decisions, the cost of financing for businesses, cash and working capital management, the process of business valuation, and how stock markets work. This textbook breaks the financial ice by offering real, practical advice, helping the reader to avoid common pitfalls, and translate the 'financialese', or business jargon that can cause confusion for those without a financial or banking background. Every chapter features real-life applications, and is punctuated with mini case studies in the form of a 'Slice of Life' and numerous dialogues that help shape the comprehension of the reader.

Christophe Thibierge is Associate Professor in the Finance department at ESCP Europe, Paris. He graduated from ESCP Europe with a Master in Management and from Ecole Centrale with a Specialised Master, and also holds a Doctorate in finance. His expertise is in the area of financial information and market valuation of firms, encompassing financial statement analysis, securities analysis and event-studies in financial communication. He teaches on the school's Master programme, its Executive MBA and on several executive programmes (both open-enrolment and customised programs). Having authored and co-authored many books in corporate finance, including translations of American textbooks, professor Thibierge is also the creator of websites and pedagogical videos dealing with corporate finance.
 
Andrew Beresford, Adjunct Professor in business communications and intercultural studies at ESCP Europe, devotes a large part of his time to the translation of scholarly articles for peer-reviewed journals and academic text books. His areas of specialization are finance, corporate strategy, marketing, business consulting, management accounting, and supply chain management. He has also translated academic articles and publications on business ethics, the environment and human rights.