Erich A. Helfert. Financial Analysis: tools and techniques. A Guide for Managers

McGraw-Hill, 2001, 480 pp.This volume is an adaptation for the professional market of the most recent 10th (millennium) edition of Dr. Helfert’s best-selling Techniques of Financial Analysis, which, with more than half a million copies in print over the past 38 years, has given the student, analyst, and business executive a concise, practical, usable, and up-to-date overview of key financial/economic analysis tools. The presentation format has always been carefully designed to help the reader understand the linkage between management decisions and their impact on the financial performance and the economic value of a business. This book helps the reader to interpret financial reports, develop basic financial projections, evaluate business investment decisions, assess the implications of financing choices, derive the value of a business or a security, and understand the role of analysis in achieving the goal of shareholder value creation. Every technique and measure is described and demonstrated in the context of important underlying financial and economic concepts, but without delving into theoretical abstraction.Concise yet sufficiently detailed, it covers the full range of financial analysis issues, including:* Managing the business as a system
* Financial statements
* Funds cycles for manufacturing, sales, and service
* Cash management
* Ratio analysis and performance
* Pro-forma financial statements
* Financial modeling
* Leverage
* Financial growth plans
* Time value of money
* Analysis of investment decisions
* Using return standards
* Cost of capital
* Financing choices
* Definitions of value
* Shareholder value and value-based methodologies