I have two corp fin books by Ross and company. This book was purchased while studing for the Level I of the CFA exam. The other book was used in graduate school. Both books are sub par in quality and were not cheap either. Save your money. Don't use this text.

I have a master degree in finance and I believe this is the best work from Stepehen Ross. The book can be utilized for graduate students as well as undergraduate. If you are looking for a book which is extensively comprehensive and at the same time friendly you are looking for this book. It also contains diverse examples involving the use of financial calculators and software. It furnishes a preview on mergers and acquisitions and constantly tends to go beyond corporate to multinational

I have used this text in two corporate finance courses that I have taken at university and it was very helpful in allowing me to understand the concepts that were being presented in class.

I had this book sitting on my shelf for about a one year. I was saving it. I wanted to read all of my lesser books before I read this one because I expected it to be an amazing escape novel filled with fun characters and fast-paced action. Let me stress that that is all that I expected from this novel. Having read all of Frey's previous novels, I was hoping and expecting that he would return to his fine form in the late 90's. I was thinking terms of the days when "The Takeover" and 'The Vulture Fund" were devoured by myself in mere hours. Hence the reason why this book sat on my shelf for a year, it was just waiting to be enjoyed. I was saving the (alleged) best for last.
When I picked it up I immediately eased into the Classic Stephen Frey style. The flashback, the random situation, the flash-ahead. I found myself enthralled. For the first time in my Stephen Frey reading career his protagonist was deeply flawed with a severe drinking problem....(but fear not reader Bo still had the rugged goodlooks, and chiseled features that we have all grown to expect). As I was reading the book I found myself loving the sitution that the author had painted himself into. He was setting things up to be a fun filled read, with a hint of consipacy, and a dash of revenge. (Can a pulp reader ask for anything more!!!!)
Unfortunately the answer to that question is Yes. Soon the wheels fall of the wagon. I won't say how, or why, but what I will say is that things just go down the tubes faster then you can say......TRUST FUND.
As plot moves along, the reader continues to guess who pulling all the strings, but the holes in logic that are soon exposed in the plot are sad. Very sad.
One small example is that at one point in the book it is discovered that a character has a homing device on him at all times. I immediately started thinking that if this guy has a homing device on him then why wouldn't the evil powers that be put a homing device on characters that could actually do some serious damage. The average reader may not worry to much about that one, but the crux of the book is based on one character putting literally billions of dollars on a hunch. A hunch! I may go to Vegas and put 50 dollars on a hunch that the Leafs will win the Stanley Cup, but that is my problem.
I want to call a spade a spade. When I sat down to read this book I expected there to be cardboard characters, and moments of suspended disbelief and giant leaps of faith. However to encounter these gaping hole in logic, i felt that the reader was sold short. It is a shame that such a clever idea has been squandered so pathetically.
Feel free to read this book, but make sure you have a least a couple of beers in yours system. Trust me, you'll thank me later.

Because I liked what Frey did with the plot in the first book I read of his (The Insider), I was willing to forgive some very serious flaws in his writing and decided to read Trust Fund. Unfortunately this book is too flawed to even be saved by a decent plot.

In both of the books that I read by Frey, he tries to use the dialogue of the characters to clue us in to what has happened in the past. It is a terrible strategy because it makes the characters completely unbelievable. Nobody talks like this.

The other problem here is that we have a main character that we are supposed to like and see as the good guy, and yet Frey does a terrible job of making him likable. We are supposed to be touched by the goodness of his marriage and his relationship with his wife, and yet he drives around strippers and meets women in bars. Frey has created a womanizing drunk and we are supposed to believe that he is a good husband and that he is still being faithful simply because he doesn't sleep with these other women.

The other characters are equally weak. The evil characters are almost ridiculous. They are so one dimensional that the reader has a hard time being outraged by their actions. We need more substance here.

The plot in this book is once again passable and even entertaining at times. Frey just needs to spend more time developing his craft. His dialogue is very weak and his characters lack substance. It is too bad that we are willing to make authors best sellers before we make them earn it.

Trust Fund grabbed me right from the start (a dead body in the beginning always helps). I have read all of Stephen Frey's books and this is one of his best, but one of his bad habits rears its ugly head again. Bo Hancock, the main character is an interesting character and I felt that I could relate with some of the decisions he made. The Hancocks are an interesting clan and they have a lot of problems, but they all seem to believe that money makes it all better, except our hero Bo of course.

I thought that the story flowed very well until the last quarter of the book, when Stephen Frey fell into the habit of making everything huge and corruption everywhere. It ended up having a little too much conspiracy theory for me. But if you can accept that this is a great read.