Spreadsheet Modeling in Corporate Finance Review

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(More customer reviews)Although intended as a supplement for textbooks used in college level business courses, this book is also valuable to working professionals who deal with financial modeling. Because I am a consultant and project manager I'm going to slant this review towards how my peers will benefit from the book. It's value outside of my narrow scope should be apparent.
First, unlike other books that teach spreadsheet modeling, the spreadsheets that come on the CD ROM are not finished products. Instead the author has chosen spreadsheets that use dynamic charts to illustrate concepts in an interactive manner (drag a control to change the parameters and the chart changes - this is a powerful teaching tool in or out of the classroom).
Second, the book needs to be read in sequence because spreadsheets you build in one chapter are the basis for refinements and added complexity in later chapters. This leads to highly complex spreadsheets, such as the model in chapter 16 (Life-Cycle Financial Planning), which incorporates tax parameters (federal and state levels), benefits analysis and other factors.
In all there are 53 spreadsheets presented in this book, and you build them. The author calls this "active learning" (as opposed to passive learning where you are provided templates), and it is effective because you are the one who builds the models and tools while following the book. Note that this book does NOT purport to teach Excel programming, but how to build models using Excel's basic features and functions.
As a consultant and project manager the parts of this book that were immediately useful to me were: Parts I (Time Value of Money), III (Capital Budgeting) and IV (Financial Planning). In particular, project management requires a thorough understanding of time value of money and capital budgeting, and the chapters in these sections should be read by anyone who is assigned as a project manager. Financial planning, especially from the perspective of IT asset management, is another knowledge area in which IT consultants should be well versed.
The other parts of the book (II Valuation and V Options and Corporate Finance) will be more useful to finance professionals and general business managers. There is a collection of supporting material on the author's web site that augment this book, including spreadsheets that can be downloaded. Another plus for the working professional is the book is fast-paced and, dare I say, engrossing.

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If you build it, you will learn.*Comes as a book and CD-ROM that teaches students how to build financial models in Excel *Provides instructions for building financial models, not templates *Progresses from simple examples to complex real-world applications *Is available is alternative versions that match the notation of most Prentice Hall Corporate Finance textbooks and other popular textbooks *Includes end-of-chapter problems *Has been extensively classroom-tested

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