Book Summary of Applied Corporate Finance: A User's Manual This hands-on guide to corporate finance focuses on converting the theory and models in corporate finance into tools that can be used to analyze, understand and help any business. The second edition classifies all decisions made by any business into three groups: decisions on where to invest the resources or funds that the business has raised, decisions on where and how to raise funds to finance these investments, and decisions on how much and in what form to return funds back to the owners. All sections of the book are traceable to this framework. Also, four very different firms are used as examples throughout the text to illustrate the universality of corporate financial principles across different firms in different markets and across different types of decisions. About the Author Aswath Damodaran is an Associate Professor of Finance at New York University's Leonard N. Stern School of Business. He has received several awards, including, the NYU Distinguished Teaching Award in 1990, Sterns Outstanding Teacher Award in 1988, and the Professor of the Year Award in 1988, 1991, and 1992. He has written three books on equity valuation (Damodaran on Valuation, Investment Valuation, The Dark Side of Valuation) and two on corporate finance (Corporate Finance: Theory and Practice, Applied Corporate Finance: A Users Manual). He has co-edited a book on investment management with Peter Bernstein (Investment Management) and has a book on investment philosophies (Investment Philosophies). His newest book titled Investment Fables was released in 2004. Mr. Damodaran also offers training programs in corporate finance and valuation at Deutsche Bank, Swiss Bank, Credit Suisse, J. P. Morgan, and Smith Barney. A former instructor at the University of California at Berkeley, he has written several articles for many of the nations leading financial journals. He received his MBA and Ph.D from the University of California at Los Angeles. Table of Contents • Chapter 1. The Foundations • Chapter 2. The Objective in Decision Making • Chapter 3. The Basics of Risk • Chapter 4. Risk Measurement and Hurdle Rates • Chapter 5. Measuring Return on Investment • Chapter 6. Project Interactions, Side Costs and Side Benefits • Chapter 7. Capital Structure: Overview of the Financing Decision • Chapter 8. Capital Structure: The Optimal Financing Mix • Chapter 9. Capital Structure: The Financing Details • Chapter 10. Dividend Policy • Chapter 11. Analyzing Cash Returned to Stockholders • Chapter 12. Valuation: Principles and Practice • Appendix 1: Basic Statistics • Appendix 2: Financial Statements • Appendix 3: Time Value of Money • Appendix 4: Option Pricing • Index