A Comprehensive Look at Corporate Investment and Asset Valuation from Two of Today's Most Popular and Influential Finance Writers

A number of questions come into play when a corporation attempts to add value through its capital investment decisions. How do you precisely value an asset, either incoming or outgoing? Which strategy will provide the greatest value increase, and how can you implement that strategy? What are the risks?

Capital Investment and Valuation addresses the many ways in which corporations value assets and make investment decisions. Filled with information and ideas that are both thought provoking and functional, it provides an indispensable look into the theory and mechanics of valuation and investing, including:

The six ideas that must be understood for effective capital investment and valuation

Cost/benefit analyses of mergers, buyouts, spinoffs, and other corporate control issues

Strategies for creating shareholder value through integrated investment and operating programs

Through six editions, Brealey and Myers' classic textbook Principles of Corporate Finance has become renowned for presenting in-depth discussions of financial theory and practice in an engaging and lively style. The Brealey & Myers on Corporate Finance series brings this classic text into the business environment, providing time-pressed professionals with a more focused format while retaining the timeless guidance and inherent readability of the original.

"The market for most corporate assets is pretty thin. Look in the classified advertisements in The Wall Street Journal: It is not often that you see a blast furnace for sale."--From Chapter Two

Capital Investment and Valuation belies the notion that corporate finance texts must be dull. This handbook for practicing professionals combines in-depth finance information and methodology with dynamic and often humorous writing as it focuses on the many issues professionals face when making investment and valuation decisions. Its step-by-step treatment encompasses:

Value--Ways to value common stocks, calculate present values, and make investment decisions based on NPV (Net Present Value)

Risk--Definitions of risk, how risk and return are linked in a competitive economy, and capital budgeting and risk

Issues in Capital Budgeting--Popular project analysis techniques, plus techniques for understanding and maximizing NPV

Financing and project value--Overview of corporate financing, issues important to project valuation, and ways to estimate the value contributed by financing decisions

Options--How security options work and interact with asset price, how they are valued, and the impact of various "real" options

Control and governance--Reasons for (and mechanics behind) mergers, buyouts, partnerships, and conglomerates

Capital Investment and Valuation also differs from the majority of finance tomes by consistently reflecting on the human side of the equation. Should you commit capital today to begin construction of a new office building? When is it advisable for you to recommend continuing operations at a low-profit or even unprofitable location? Will your firm's debtors or its shareholders generally come out ahead in an unfriendly merger--and whose interests are you more accountable for?

Corporate financial management is at its core a fluid and constantly challenging area. Capital Investment and Valuation takes you inside the fundamental question of how a corporation invests its capital and values its assets. It introduces you to the subject's often-conflicting objectives and outlines ways in which you can satisfy the greatest number of those objectives, while ensuring that all areas of a corporation operate--and conflicts are resolved--under one consistent set of financial rules.

Richard A. Brealey, Ph.D. and Stewart C. Myers, Ph.D. are coauthors of the perpetually best-selling textbook Principles of Corporate Finance and two of the most respected and accomplished names in education and corporate finance. Dr. Brealey has taught at the London Business School for more than thirty years and is former president of the European Finance Association. Dr. Myers is the Gordon Y. Billard Professor of Finance at MIT's Sloan School of Management and is past president of the American Finance Association.