Opinions on Best Valuation Book

Hey all,

I have decided to take start learning about valuation and the like, and want to know every ones favorite book on it. The main ones I am looking at are:

Rosenbaum and Pearl Damodaran McKinsey

Thanks!

58 Comments
 

Valuing a Business, Shannon P. Pratt -- more oriented toward business valuation professionals than the books you mentioned. Very detailed and ties everything back to the application

"You lose money chasing women, never lose women chasing money" -Nas
 
Best Response

Skip the McKinsey book if for no other reason than their constant arguing that depreciation should be a cash expense. That argument would be an insta ding in any ib interview.

The Rosenbaum and Pearl book is great and fairly easy to read. Valuation for Mergers, Buyouts and Restructuring by Enrique Arzac is frequently used in M&A classes, and many senior bankers at my bank have a copy in their office, but it is not the easiest read and (in my opinion) does a poor job at actually explain the valuation process to you.

EDIT: If this is for interview preparation, I'd just stick with interview guides and the Rosenbaum & Pearl book.

 

Assuming that you have close to 0 experience in valuation: start with Rosenbaum, will give you a good basic understanding. Then read Damodaran's Applied corporate finance, Investment Valuation and The Dark Side of Valuation. You can get PDF versions of all three on his homepage if you click around a bit.

I'm talking about liquid. Rich enough to have your own jet. Rich enough not to waste time. Fifty, a hundred million dollars, buddy. A player. Or nothing. See my Blog & AMA
 

and I fully agree with everyone else on the McKinsey book, though. Don't waste your time.

I'm talking about liquid. Rich enough to have your own jet. Rich enough not to waste time. Fifty, a hundred million dollars, buddy. A player. Or nothing. See my Blog & AMA
 

thanks for the damodaran tip.

i have a final round interview with a big 4 valuation group

the job description is as follows:

• Analyzing competitive industry dynamics and financial condition of peer companies, evaluating business plans, adjusting financial statements, and building cost allocation models. Techniques include discounted cash flow analyses, CAPM, market multiples methods and replacement cost valuation approaches.

• Participating in due diligence activities on pending M&A transactions, public-company purchase price allocations, goodwill impairment measurement, international restructurings and private-company fairness opinions

• Valuing tangible assets and intangible assets such as trademarks, developed technology, in process R&D, customer relationships, contracts, backlog, patents, covenants-not-to compete and workforces

• Assisting in report preparation, proposals and executive presentations

 

valuation books... Deloitte reccomends:

There are numerous books authored by Pratt and also Damodaran on practical valuation. In your spare time I would recommend reading at least the summaries of FASB statements 141 and 142. They can be found at www.fasb.org

If you are interested in options read FASB 123R, 133,155, & 159.

 

That's a good book, particularly on the modeling part. As to a good book to understand valuation, for me the best is "Valuation" by Koller, Goedhart and Wessels. Another great book once you have gone through the basics is the 2nd edition of Damodaran's "The dark side of valuation".

Another book similar to Pearl's is "Corporate Valuation" by Wharton's Robert Holthausen (focus on specifics of modeling and financial statements analysis)

 
2133That's a good book, particularly on the modeling part. As to a good book to understand valuation, for me the best is "Valuation" by Koller, Goedhart and Wessels. Another great book once you have gone through the basics is the 2nd edition of Damodaran's "The dark side of valuation".

Another book similar to Pearl's is "Corporate Valuation" by Wharton's Robert Holthausen (focus on specifics of modeling and financial statements analysis)

The thing is, I am a complete noob when it comes to valuation. I shall be attending a Masters program this coming Fall and wish to prep myself for FT recruiting. So for a beginner will Joshua Pearl's book be the best?

GS, BX. Will work for prestige.
 

I am reading Joshua Rosenbaum's and Joshua Pearl's "Investment Banking: Valuation, Leveraged Buyouts, and Mergers & Acquisitions" right now. As the foreward of the book suggests, it definitely "bridges the theoretical to the practical with user-friendly, step-by-step approaches to performing primary valuation methodologies." Very easy to understand - two thumbs up.

 

I have Rosenbuam's and Pearl's book... pretty straight foreward and easy to use

'Before you enter... be willing to pay the price'
 

If you can understand Damodaran, you can pretty much understand everything you need for corporate finance. We had him for 3 days during training, and I learned more in those three days than I did in a full year of finance classes in college. Read Damodaran's website, since he has all his books, spreadsheets, etc. online for free. Other than that just enjoy the summer- your b-school classes will cover almost everything you want/need. There are a good amount of people going to b-school with no finance background so don't worry. Reading something like Liar's Poker or Barbarians at the Gate would probably be worthwhile and less monotonous than reading textbooks.

 
h.e.pennypackerWell, a lot of Damadoran's stuff, while interesting, is very academic (rather than practical). So, I purchased this along with a MM focused book. I'll let ya know what I think when it gets here.

Could you tell me what is the name of the MM focused book that you ordered?

 

Mergers & Acquisitions: An Insider's Guide to the Purchase and Sale of Middle Market Business Interests by Dennis J. Roberts

It's not a valuation book, though it includes that, but more of an overview and outlook on the future of the MM space from a buyside and sellside perspective. My boutique works from lower->middle->large market, so I thought it would be helpful considering the lack of literature about the MM space.

 

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