This book starts with an introductory chapter reiterating the idea that corporate financiers are the bridge between the economy and the realm of finance. Increasingly, they must play the role of marketing managers and negotiators. Their products are financial securities that represent rights to the firm’s cash flows. Their customers are bankers and investors. A good financial manager listens to customers and sells them good products at high prices. A good financial manager always thinks in terms of value rather than costs or earnings.
       Section I goes over the basics of financial analysis, i.e. understanding the company based on a detailed analysis of its financial statements. We are amazed at the extent to which large numbers of investors neglected this approach during the latest stock market euphoria. When share prices everywhere are rising, why stick to a rigorous approach? For one thing, to avoid being caught in the crash that inevitably follows. The return to reason has also returned financial analysis to its rightful place as a cornerstone of economic decision-making. To perform financial analysis, you must first understand the firm’s basic financial mechanics (Chapters 2–5). Next you must master the basic techniques of accounting, including accounting principles, consolidation techniques and certain complexities (Chapters 6–7), based on international (IFRS) standards now mandatory in over 80 countries, including the EU (for listed companies), Australia, South Africa and accepted by the SEC for US listing. In order to make things easier for the newcomer to finance, we have structured the presentation of financial analysis itself around its guiding principle: in the long run, a company can survive only if it is solvent and creates value for its shareholders. To do so, it must generate wealth (Chapters 9 and 10), invest (Chapter 11), finance its investments (Chapter 12) and generate a sufficient return (Chapter 13). The illustrative financial analysis of the Italian appliance manufacturer Indesit will guide you throughout this section of the book.
       Section II reviews the basic theoretical knowledge you will need to make an assessment of the value of the firm. Here again, the emphasis is on reasoning, which in many cases will become automatic (Chapters 15–19): efficient capital markets, the time value of money, the price of risk, volatility, arbitrage, return, portfolio theory, present value and future value, market risk, beta, etc. Then we review the major types of financial securities: equity, debt and options, for the purposes of valuation, along with the techniques for issuing and placing them (Chapters 20–25).
       Section III, is devoted to value, to its theoretical foundations and to its computation. Value is the focus of any financier, both its measure and the way it is shared. Over the medium term, creating value is, most of the time, the first aim of managers (Chapters 26–31).
       In Section IV, “Corporate financial policies”, we analyse each financial decision in terms of: t value in the context of the theory of efficient capital markets; t balance of power between owners and managers, shareholders and debtholders (agency theory); t communication (signal theory). Such decisions include choosing a capital structure, investment decisions, cost of capital, dividend policy, share repurchases, capital increases, hybrid security issues, etc. In this section, we draw your attention to today’s obsession with earnings per share, return on equity and other measures whose underlying basis we have a tendency to forget and which may, in some cases, be only distantly related to value creation. We have devoted considerable space to the use of options (as a technique or a type of reasoning) in each financial decision (Chapters 32–39).
        When you start reading Section V, “Financial management”, you will be ready to examine and take the remaining decisions: how to create and finance a start up, how to organise a company’s equity capital and its governance, buying and selling companies, mergers, demergers, LBOs, bankruptcy and restructuring (Chapters 40–47). Lastly, this section presents cash flow management, working capital management and the management of the firm’s financial risks (Chapters 48–50). Last but not least, the epilogue addresses the question of the links between finance and strategy.