Product Description

Essentials of Corporate Finance, 5/e by Ross, Westerfield, and Jordan is written to convey the most important concepts and principles of corporate finance at a level that is approachable for a wide audience. The authors retain their modern approach to finance, but have distilled the subject down to the essential topics in 18 chapters. They believe that understanding the “why” is just as important, if not more so, than understanding the “how”, especially in an introductory course. Three basic themes emerge as their central focus:

1. An emphasis on intuition—separate and explain the principles at work on a common sense, intuitive level before launching into specifics. Underlying ideas are discussed first in general terms, then followed by specific examples that illustrate in more concrete terms how a financial manager might proceed in a given situation.

2. A unified valuation approach—Net Present Value is treated as the basic concept underlying corporate finance. Every subject the authors cover is firmly rooted in valuation, and care is taken to explain how decisions have valuation effects.

3. A managerial focus—Students learn that financial management concerns management. The role of financial manager as decision maker is emphasized and they stress the need for managerial input and judgment.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #242598 in Books
• Published on: 2005-11-10
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 640 pages

About the Author
Stephen Ross is presently the Franco Modigliani Professor of Finance and Economics at the Sloan School of Management, Massachusetts Institute of Technology. One of the most widely published authors in finance and economics, Professor Ross is recognized for his work in developing the Arbitrage Pricing Theory and his substantial contributions to the discipline through his research in signaling, agency theory, option pricing, and the theory of the term structure of interest rates, among other topics. A past president of the American Finance Association, he currently serves as an associate editor of several academic and practitioner journals. He is a trustee of CalTech, a director of the College Retirement Equity Fund (CREF), and Freddie Mac. He is also the co-chairman of Roll and Ross Asset Management Corporation.

Randoloph W. Westerfield is Dean of the Marshall School of Business at University of Southern California and holder of the Robert R. Dockson Dean’s Chair of Business Administration. From 1988 to 1993, Professor Westerfield served as the chairman of the School’s finance and business economics department and the Charles B. Thornton Professor of Finance. He came to USC from The Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania, where he was the chairman of the finance department and member of the finance faculty for 20 years. His areas of expertise include corporate financial policy, investment management and analysis, mergers and acquisitions, and stock market price behavior. Professor Westerfield has served as a member of the Continental Bank trust committee, supervising all activities of the trust department. He has been consultant to a number of corporations, including AT&T, Mobil Oil and Pacific Enterprises, as well as to the United Nations, the U.S. Department of Justice and Labor, and the State of California.

Bradford D. Jordan is Professor of Finance and Gatton Research Fellow in the Carol Martin Gatton College of Business and Economics at the University of Kentucky. He has a long-standing interest in both applied and theoretical issues in corporate finance, and has extensive experience teaching all levels of corporate finance and financial management policy. Professor Jordan has published numerous articles on issues such as cost of capital, capital structure, and the behavior of security prices.

Customer Reviews

ok, but...
i think that the guide that came with my book, which shows pictures of the slides that professors are supposed to use was completely usless, if you have to purchase this book for a class, try and get a used copy. It is not worth the price you have to pay. There is another book by Breyli and Meyers titles Corporate Finance which is much more comprehensive and much better.

Horrible Book
The only great thing about this book is its small size and thats about it. The text doesn't do a very good job of explaining the ideas and concepts. Say you are given certain parts of an equation it doesn't really show you how to use to components to solve for the right number. Instead it gives you a wonderful GENERAL overview of an idea that is minimal in explanation. I'm almost at the point of flipping out because the lack of explanations and I'm only on Chapter 2.

A Difficult Read
Corporate Finance is a difficult subject. This book made it extremely difficult. Terms were not explained clearly or covered enough for anyone new to the subject to get an understanding. I used the web along with the text to get examples of what should have been more clearly illustrated in the textbook. I was very disapointed.