Executive Finance and Strategy


Book Description

Many strategies are explained as actions that will achieve the desired goals or visions of the company, but in order to predict the success of your strategy it is vital to gain an understanding of how it will impact on the financial statement. Executive Finance and Strategy works on the premise that financial models can clearly demonstrate where a particular strategy might lead, enabling you to evaluate past accounts and statements in order to respond to recent company history. It also explains how company law and ethics underpin financial statements and clarifies your responsibilities as a senior manager or director. By using finance as a record keeper and predictor of success, it helps you quantify your strategy to gain support from colleagues and take the right actions to ensure sustainable growth. Online supporting resources for this book include tables and formulas to support financial models within the book.




Corporate Financial Strategy


Book Description

Corporate Financial Strategy is a practical guide to understanding the elements of financial strategy, and how directors and advisors can add value by tailoring financial strategy to complement corporate strategy. The book sets out appropriate financial strategies over the key milestones in a company's life. It discusses the practicalities behind transactions such as: * Raising venture capital * Flotation on a stock exchange * Making acquisitions * Management buyouts * Financial restructuring In explaining financing structures, the book sets out the basic building blocks of any financial instrument to enable the reader to appreciate innovations in the field. It also illustrates how and why different types of security might be used. The second edition of this very popular textbook brings to bear the considerable commercial and academic experience of its co-authors. Throughout, the book offers a range of up-to-date case studies, abundant diagrams and figures, and frequent 'Working Insight' sections to provide practical illumination of the theory. This book will enable you to understand the potential value added by the best financial strategy, while fully demonstrating the working role of financial strategy within an overall corporate strategy. An excellent practical guide for senior financial managers, strategic-decision makers and qualified accountants, the text is also invaluable as a clear-sighted and thorough companion for students and senior executives on finance courses (including MBA, MSc and DMS).




FINANCE FOR EXECUTIVES


Book Description

The book Finance for Executives: A Practical Guide for Managers meets the needs of global executives, both finance as well as non-financial managers. It is a practical and fundamental finance reference book for any manager, as it makes a perfect balance of financial management theory and practice. It focuses on corporate finance concepts from value creation to derivatives, including cost of capital (and WACC), valuation, financing policies, project evaluation, and many other essential finance definitions. Finance for Executives makes finance simple and intuitive, through the use of real world data (brief company case studies and empirical examples of concepts), Excel financial modelling tools, and practical short chapters. Target Audience This finance book is appropriate for business executives, from all backgrounds, seeking to Focus on the links between financial management and the strategy of their company, be it a private or publicly traded company Discover how to create value for their company and boost its financial performance Understand the key topics of corporate finance for non-financial managers Create a cost of capital culture within a company Refresh and broaden their understanding of the latest financial concepts and tools Learn about financial management for decision makers - including financing and dividend policies, company valuation, mergers and acquisitions (M&As), project evaluation, cost of capital (WACC) estimation, or risk management and derivatives Finance for Executives is suited as a finance textbook for corporate finance programs, executive education courses, as well as in MBA, master's, and executive MBA programs. Indeed, the book is based on many years of executive education and consulting with world-class corporations from all continents of the world. What Is This Book About? Finance should be fun, and practical as well. With this book at hand, you will have access to a set of tools that will help you develop your intuition for solving key financial problems, improve your business decisions, and formulate strategies. This finance for managers' reference book is based on Simplicity - The core concepts in corporate finance are simple, and will become intuitively clear after using this book Conciseness - The chapters are short and self-contained to appeal to busy executives who are keen on value-added activities Practical focus - The key concepts of financial management are explained (and linked to Excel modelling tools), while you learn to identify the problems and pitfalls of different managerial choices Application of theory to practice - It highlights key academic research results that are relevant for practitioners Real-world focus - The book includes empirical data on several companies and industries around the world. Working with real-world problems and real-world data is more fruitful than theoretical discussions on formulas Excel Templates An Excel spreadsheet containing all the financial models used in the different chapters is available for download from the book's website. Practitioners will find the file easy to customize to their own requirements. It is useful in a variety of situations: value creation and its decomposition into managerial drivers or key performance indicators (KPIs), cost of capital (WACC) estimation, project evaluation, mergers and acquisitions, company valuation, derivatives valuation, etc. Editorial Reviews An excellent teach-yourself finance primer for non-financial executives, and, I dare say, even for most finance executives. Ravi Kant, Vice Chairman, Tata Motors, India The finance reference book for the desk of ANY manager. Michel Demaré, Chairman of the Board, Syngenta, Switzerland The perfect balance of practice and theory. Geert Bekaert, Professor of Finance, Columbia Business School, USA A key tool to improve your business decisions. Thilo Mannhardt, CEO of Ultrapar, Brazil Finance for Executives is easy to follow, and makes a boring subject actually quite exciting. Severin Schwan, CEO, Roche Group, Switzerland A must-have for your list of favorites. José Manuel Campa, Professor of Finance, IESE Business School, Spain




Financial Markets and Corporate Strategy


Book Description

The second European edition of Financial Markets and Corporate Strategy provides comprehensive coverage of financial markets and corporate finance, brought to life by real world examples, cases and insights. Placed in a truly international context, this new and updated edition takes an academic and practical view-point to guide students through the challenges of studying and practicing finance. Aimed specifically at an international audience, this edition boasts hundreds of references to new and relevant non-US research papers from top finance journals. Whilst retaining the well respected structure of the successful US text, Professor David Hillier has also made a number of additions which include: Fully updated research, data and examples in every chapter. Coverage of the global financial crisis, the impact it made on the financial markets and the lessons being learnt by the finance industry. A stronger emphasis on corporate governance and agency theory. Updates on accounting standards, bankruptcy laws, tax rules and tax systems.




Financial Leadership for Nonprofit Executives


Book Description

Making sure that your nonprofit is going to be around long-term requires financial leadership. This means creating a financial vision for your organization and planning how you’ll get there. Financial Leadership for Nonprofit Executives gives you the framework, specific language, and processes to lead with confidence. With it, you’ll learn how to protect and grow the assets of your organization and accomplish as much mission as possible with those resources. The good news is you don’t have to be a trained accountant, earn an MBA, or have run a for-profit business in another lifetime. You already have many of the skills it takes to be a financial leader. This useful guide makes the process understandable and doable. You’ll find clear, logical steps to learn how to get accurate financial data—in a format you can understand; use financial data to evaluate your organization’s health; plan around a set of meaningful financial goals; and communicate progress on these goals to your staff, board, and external stakeholders. You’ll also find five foundational financial leadership principles; three overarching questions every financial leader needs to be able to answer (and where to find those answers); two fundamental budgeting principles; and five steps to building a strong annual budget. At the end of each chapter is an evaluation tool. You can rate how your organization is doing relative to the component of financial leadership covered in each chapter. Each attribute is scored as being red, yellow, or green. “Red” items are below standard and require immediate attention; “yellow” items are widely practiced though not generally ideal; and “green” items are considered best practice. Over time, as you and your partners on the board and staff move the organization toward “green” in each of these areas, you will create an environment in which financial leadership can flourish.




Optimizing Corporate Portfolio Management


Book Description

If where an organization allocates its resources determines its strategy, why is it that so few companies actively manage the resource allocation process? "Optimizing Corporate Portfolio Management: Aligning Investment Proposals with Organizational Strategy" goes beyond platitudes about why you should use corporate portfolio management (CPM) by offering a practical methodology to bring this powerful discipline to your organization. "Optimizing Corporate Portfolio Management" takes an expansive view of where CPM can be utilized by demonstrating that it can be used across any business line, product group or functional area, e.g., IT, R&D, innovation, marketing, salesforce, capital expenditure, etc. CPM is appropriate anywhere discretionary investments are being selected and executed. As a result, other terms used to describe portfolio management such as IT portfolio management, enterprise portfolio management, and project portfolio management are all merely subsets or slices of CPM. The book is written by Anand Sanwal, an expert on CPM, who has led American Express' CPM discipline (referred to as American Express Investment Optimization). American Express' CPM efforts are widely recognized as the most extensive, substantial and progressive deployment of CPM across any organization. Sanwal avoids academic theories and consultant jargon to ultimately deliver pragmatic and proven recommendations on how to make CPM a reality. The book features a foreword by Gary Crittenden, former CFO and EVP of American Express, and several case studies from leading financial services, technology, and government organizations utilizing CPM. Additionally, the book has received significant praise from thought leaders at Google, HP, American Express, The CFO Executive Board, Gartner, Accenture Marketing Sciences, The Wharton School of Business and many others.




Valuation


Book Description

The number one guide to corporate valuation is back and better than ever Thoroughly revised and expanded to reflect business conditions in today's volatile global economy, Valuation, Fifth Edition continues the tradition of its bestselling predecessors by providing up-to-date insights and practical advice on how to create, manage, and measure the value of an organization. Along with all new case studies that illustrate how valuation techniques and principles are applied in real-world situations, this comprehensive guide has been updated to reflect new developments in corporate finance, changes in accounting rules, and an enhanced global perspective. Valuation, Fifth Edition is filled with expert guidance that managers at all levels, investors, and students can use to enhance their understanding of this important discipline. Contains strategies for multi-business valuation and valuation for corporate restructuring, mergers, and acquisitions Addresses how you can interpret the results of a valuation in light of a company's competitive situation Also available: a book plus CD-ROM package (978-0-470-42469-8) as well as a stand-alone CD-ROM (978-0-470-42457-7) containing an interactive valuation DCF model Valuation, Fifth Edition stands alone in this field with its reputation of quality and consistency. If you want to hone your valuation skills today and improve them for years to come, look no further than this book.




Fad-Free Strategy


Book Description

Fad-Free Strategy provides a ground-breaking approach to making better business strategy decisions: more efficient, open to out-of-the-box opportunities and evidence-based. Most strategy books focus on Grand Strategy, the process that leads to high-level recommendations or, more accurately, hypotheses about where and how to compete. While this book briefly covers critical Grand Strategy practices, it deep dives into Operational Strategy, the process of validation, adaptation and possible rejection of those hypotheses. Operational Strategy is based on an in-depth understanding of customer preferences and anticipating the choices they make. Those choices rather than managers’ ambitions determine whether a strategy will generate the aspired financial results. The book explains, by means of detailed real-world cases across industries, how to generate validated solutions to any strategic problem such as: how to enter successfully into new markets, either as an innovator or as a latecomer? How to defend one’s position against aggressive new entrants? Or how to sustain margins when price is the only thing customers seem to care about? This remarkable book contains expert advice from accomplished strategic advisors and thought leaders Daniel Deneffe and Herman Vantrappen. Fad Free Strategy will be a useful tool for smart business executives at mainstream companies who are disappointed with strategy fads and simplistic solutions based on cherry-picked, anecdotal evidence from today’s hero companies. It will also appeal to economics faculty members teaching graduate courses in business strategy who are looking for an economics-based strategy textbook that is both rigorous and comprehensive. The book’s core ideas have been taught successfully in continuing and executive education programs at Harvard University and Hult International Business School.




The Globalization of Executive Search


Book Description

Executive search, headhunting, is now one of the archetypal new knowledge intensive professional services, as well as a labor market intermediary bound up with globalization. In this book, the authors examine the key actors in the process of executive search globalization – leading global firms – and offer an interpretation of the forces producing the contemporary organizational strategies of global executive search. The Globalization of Executive Search documents the forms of institutional work that have legitimated the role of executive in elite labor markets and created demand for the services of global firms; this exposes not only the changing geographies of executive search, but also how executive search has established itself as a new knowledge intensive professional service. The authors reveal how the globalization of executive search is exemplary of the processes by which a range of new knowledge intensive professional services have come to be globally recognized, approaching the heart of contemporary capitalism.




Strategic Financial Management Casebook


Book Description

Strategic Financial Management Casebook strategically uses integrative case studies—cases that do not emphasize specific subjects such as capital budgeting or value based management—to provide a framework for understanding strategic financial management. By featuring holistic presentations, the book puts readers into the shoes of those responsible for the world's largest wealth creators. It covers strategies of growth, mergers and acquisitions, financial performance analysis over the past decade, wealth created in terms of stock returns since its listing in stock market, investment and financial decisions, cost of capital, and corporate valuation. In addition, the casebook also discusses corporate restructuring activities undertaken by each company. Each chapter follows a template to facilitate learning, and each features an Excel-based case analysis worksheet that includes a complete data set for financial analysis and valuation. - Introduces a conceptual framework for integrating strategy and finance for value creation - Emphasizes the roles of corporate governance, corporate social responsibility, and risk management in value creation - Encourages an analysis of investment, financing, and dividend decisions - Examines non-financial factors that contribute to value