Investment Banking: Valuation, Leveraged Buyouts, and Mergers and Acquisitions (Wiley Finance)

The content is presented well and covers the areas in detail while maintaining a good flow. I needed this to help with a potential transfer from the sales and trading side of IB to M&A/Lev Fin and hopefully to PE. The feedback I have received so far from practitioners is good and my preparation has centered mainly on this book. I therefore see it as a good buy for someone with no experience in the specific area; however, I can also see myself continuing to use it as a helpful reference point if I make the move and progress in the industry.

Finally, a book written by practitioners that is grounded in theory. I have been working in Investment Banking without any 'formal' accounting or finance training, this book has proved invaluable! Rosenbaum and Pearl have got this one right, clear and straight to the point, no messing about. If you had to pick one book on IB out of the hundreds available on Amazon, pick this one!

Working in the financial markets, I felt it necessary to learn about the process and mechanics of modelling so that I would be comfortable in digging through those models developed by Analysts to better form my own opinions on particular stocks of interest. I do have some academic Accounting experience (several modules as part of an undergrad in Economics) but feel that previous accounting knowledge is not a pre-requisite to begin modelling; as long as one acknowledges their early attempts will likely have little practical value as the 'art' side of accounting (and part where experience is vital) is really where the skill/ value of an analyst comes in. Having worked through the book, and since that done some of my own modelling, it has proved to be an excellent introduction to this little known to outsiders skill-set. The chapters are well thought out, with references throughout the book and the authors' reasoning is nearly always clearly communicated. That being said, my first model (a DCF) was still very tough. It required trawling through book, constantly scribbling questions down, using the Excel spreadsheet ("Add comment" quickly became my favourite function within Excel for both my reasoning of the value, the source [as the book says to do] but also for my myriad of questions of how to find the fig., work it out etc. etc.) Even with this handbook it took many hours. However, after a few weeks I finished up with a sensible Equity Valuation of my co. I should add that I am lucky to have a couple of friends who are analysts, and were a great help on those questions that really stumped me. Without them the process would have been significantly tougher as for all the uses of the internet, very specific accounting questions are still hard to get valuable answers to. Could the book have had even more detail/ depth? I guess so, but that would defy the point of it being an Introduction, and could easily have meant it was fleshed out to a 700 page behemoth. Add to that the fact each person will always have their own questions as getting to grips with modelling/ learning in general is such a personal process. I would add that the book is aimed at valuing both listed co.'s and private co.'s. For my needs, I will be modelling listed co.'s and comparing to the street's consensus so many of the steps are actually unecessary as there's more information available - whether that be other analysts research, co.'s IR, Annual Reports etc. so developing these models doesn't have to be quite as painful a process as it first seems. Lastly, the template spreadsheets are a huge help in getting one started. While you're final piece probably won't look exactly like the author's/ you may have to alter some of the functions/ draw values from different parts of the Income Statement (as the co. may focus on different Earnings values such as EBITDA or NPAT etc.) it was a crucial part of seeing how analysts build their models in practice and made something that may have been overwhelming feel bite-size. All in, an extremely valuable read and reference book moving forward. It alone won't make you a modelling maestro, but if you use this in conjunction with a mentor or two whom you can turn to where you have specific questions, it will be a hugely valuable and rewarding experience.

Any PE, VC or M&A student will find this invaluable - if not only for the models and step-by-step instructions, then for the ease with which it is readable and understandable... Great examples too. Dont hesitate, buy it.

Got this for my venture capital coursework. It is very useful to beginner to do valuation. A textbook for you if you want to be in banking

Excellent for beginners, with good insights on the applications and limitation of the most common valuation techniques.

Have researched a lot about valuation, investment and M&A, for me, this is one of the best books I have read that gives clear explanation, practical guides and concrete examples of the different methods using inside IBs.

This is a truly amazing book for those who want to go into investment banking - it's a bible. It covers valuation methods in detail and how it is practiced in M&A. The way it's written makes it easy to read and understand. Rosenbaum and Pearl have done a great job. I would definitely recommend this book to anyone looking to go into investment banking or a student studying finance.

Rosenbaum and Pearlによる、Investment Bankingの名著です。 Leveraged Buyoutsについて興味があったので、購入しました。 平易な文章で分かりやすく書いてあり、具体的なexcelでの計算式にも 触れられています。 価格がちょっと高いですが、身につければ十分ペイできますのでオススメです。

When trying to learn how to financial model, the content that most other books force upon the reader may seem daunting and overwhelming; however, this is not the case for Investment Banking: Valuation, Leveraged Buyouts, and Mergers and Acquisitions. This book thoroughly walks the reader step-by-step through the most commonly used financial models on Wall Street and simplifies concepts that other books unnecessarily make complex. The book also comes with a passcode to access online materials through Wiley's website. These online materials include both completed and blank models where the reader can actually plug in numbers and do their own analysis. This book is a must have for new-hires (analysts, associates) and prospective professionals (students). I read the book during my sophomore year of college and secured an internship at a large bank after expressing my knowledge of these models to my interviewer. If you are a college student trying to go through the interviewing process or a new hire who wants to learn quickly, I recommend this extremely straightforward book.

This is more informative than many longer investment banking books I've owned and it's much more accessible and lays in the information out in a more practical manner than lighter investment banking books that I've owned. The authors have found the perfect balance of theory and application as the book follows a very logical flow while keeping the reader engaged. The spreadsheets are incredibly useful as well and, in my opinion, are worth the price of the book alone. The only question I have for the authors, and the only thing about the book I would amend, is, why is there so little time spent discussing IPO's? This seems like a glaring omission to me but I'm not an experienced banker as the authors are and seeing as how the book is so thorough in every other respect, I'm sure it was done for a good reason. If you're interested in investment banking, consider this book a "Must Read."

I bought this book after the authors of this book, Rosenbaum and Pearl, presented at a finance summit at Rutgers Business School. I thought their presentation was clear and easy to understand so I bought the book to learn more about investment banking, out of pure curiosity. Although I'm a strategy and marketing major, the book provides a clear and concise explanation of valuation and M&A, but still goes into details and explains cash flow analysis, transaction analysis, and helps one learn to decode financial statements. The book is filled with diagrams and tables to illustrate the points. The best thing about this book is that while it explains many different topics, they are broken down into a step-by-step process. The text is also easy to read. The book was helpful in a financial statement analysis class and I keep it as a desk reference in my current role in pharmaceutical business development.

The meat of this book is a how-to on LBO model construction. It even includes a sample LBO model which is well constructed and will give some insights not only into Excel, but also into the economics of an LBO. However, I do think it is important to say that being able to build an LBO model isn't really the holy grail of valuation, it is more something to have in your toolkit after learning the fundamentals. If you are an analyst and you just have to know how to create an LBO model, get this book, it will certainly teach you how in a quick period of time. If you are looking to learn valuation, start elsewhere and come back to this later.