The first part of the book covers very basic material that may be found anywhere on the Internet or in a beginner's finance text book. This portion will be valuable only to introductory students of the subject.

The second two parts, which deal with actual valuation techniques, are very verbose, but lacking in organization and depth. This half assumes that you are already familiar with concepts such as WACC, Free Cash Flows, and other accounting and valuation terms. Although several valuation techniques are indeed discussed, by no means is the list comprehensive. Furthermore, no systematic approach to deriving or explaining the formulas is available, and often, terms not introduced earlier are used.

On the positive side, however, the book makes easy reading and focuses on a more practical, rather than academic or theoretical, discussion of valuation.

This book may not provide much value to a serious student of valuation. Furthermore, I do not believe it will make an ideal reference for the experienced professional either. At best, it will make a good second reference for a graduate level course in valuation.

I hoped that McKinsey would have something new to say on this subject. There are two corporate finance texts and various finance books that cover the ground better or at least as well, so it is hard to see why this book was written.

In light of recent corporate shenanigans with off-balance sheet products, it is unforgiveable that this book doesn't address how lack of value can be disguised using off-balance sheet products. Total return swaps, an off-balance sheet financing tool, isn't discussed, and credit derivatives, another off-balance sheet tool aren't even discussed. For coverage of these topics and offshore vehicles, read "Credit Derivatives" by Tavakoli.

This book provides excellent information about the DCF Valuation process. The reader will learn how to develop the model and where to input the various data, as well as understand how to justify some of the assumptions such as cost of equity. The disk that accompanies the hardcover addition will be very useful to some practitioners, although analysts with strong modeling skills will likely want to create their own spreadsheet. The book, however, is not a comprehensive guide to valuation, as it does not discuss other methods such as the peer group comparison. Nonetheless, it is an excellent reference book on the topic of DCF Valuation, and it belongs on every financial analyst's desk.

Hi I just wanted to comment on your Intro to Hosptality book. I am a college student using this book I also work in the hospitality field and most of the materials and questions given on tests doesn't happen in the "real world" I find that this book doesn't comply with the day to day activity of the hospitality field and the stuff we learn in class is suppost to help us when we get out of school however this learning material doesn't I am not saying this book is porely written just the material in this book is very vague and doesn't go with the things we learn on the job. For example a question on one of the test it asks To meet the competition, upscale restaurants are likey to emphasize on ? your anwser was discounts for people over 65 and another anwser was service. Upscale resturants rely on SERVICE the better the service, the more likey the people will come back! It doesn't matter if your 65 or 25. That was just one example. The whole book has misleading questions that isn't the way the hospitality feild is. And I just figure the whole point of going to school is once you leave the class is to take what you have learned and apply it to every day activity in your hospitality feild. And this book doesn't do that I think this was a waste of my money! I spent about 65 dollars on a book that was useless! I don't mean to be so critical but I pay for school my self and working full time and being a full time student I try to get everything out of my classes I can and get my moneys worth. And this being a required class it doesn't measure up to par and this is not only my opinion but my fellow class mates also.