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Investment Banking: Valuation, Leveraged Buyouts, and Mergers and Acquisitions Hardcover – May 4 2009
There is a newer edition of this item:
Investment Banking: Valuation, Leveraged Buyouts, and Mergers & Acquisitions is a highly accessible and authoritative book that focuses on the primary valuation methodologies currently used on Wall Street—comparable companies, precedent transactions, DCF, and LBO analysis. These methodologies are used to determine valuation for public and private companies within the context of M&A transactions, LBOs, IPOs, restructurings, and investment decisions. Using a step-by-step how-to approach for each methodology, the authors build a chronological knowledge base and define key terms, financial concepts, and processes throughout the book. They also provide a comprehensive overview of the fundamentals of LBOs and an organized M&A sale process.
In the aftermath of the subprime mortgage crisis and ensuing credit crunch, the world of finance is returning to the fundamentals of valuation and critical due diligence. This involves the use of more realistic assumptions governing approach to risk as well as a wide range of value drivers. While valuation has always involved a great deal of “art” in addition to time-tested “science,” the artistry is perpetually evolving in accordance with market developments and conditions. In this sense, this book is particularly topical—in addition to detailing the technical fundamentals behind valuation, the authors infuse practical judgment skills and perspective to help guide the science.
- ISBN-100470442204
- ISBN-13978-0470442203
- Edition1st
- PublisherWiley
- Publication dateMay 4 2009
- LanguageEnglish
- Dimensions18.54 x 2.79 x 26.16 cm
- Print length336 pages
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Product description
Review
“Rosenbaum and Pearl succeed in providing a systematic approach to addressing a critical issue in any M&A, IPO, or investment situation—namely, how much is a business or transaction worth. They also put forth the framework for helping approach more nuanced questions such as how much to pay for the business and how to get the deal done. Due to the lack of a comprehensive written reference material on valuation, the fundamentals and subtlety of the trade are often passed on orally from banker-to-banker on a case-by-case basis. In codifying the art and science of investment banking, the authors convert this oral history into an accessible framework by bridging the theoretical to the practical with user-friendly, step-by-step approaches to performing primary valuation methodologies.”
–Joseph R. Perella, Chairman and CEO, Perella Weinberg Partners
Praise for the Book
"Investment Banking provides a highly practical and relevant guide to the valuation analysis at the core of investment banking, private equity, and corporate finance. Mastery of these essential skills is fundamental for any role in transaction-related finance. This book will become a fixture on every finance professional's bookshelf."
—Thomas H. Lee, President, Lee Equity Partners, LLC Founder, Thomas H. Lee Capital Management, LLC
"This book will surely become an indispensable guide to the art of buyout and M&A valuation, for the experienced investment practitioner as well as for the non-professional seeking to learn the mysteries of valuation."
—David M. Rubenstein, Co-Founder and Managing Director, The Carlyle Group
"As a practitioner of hundreds of M&A and LBO transactions during the last 20 years, I recommend this book to advisors, financiers, practitioners, and anyone seriously interested in investment transactions. Rosenbaum and Pearl have created a comprehensive and thoughtfully written guide covering the core skills of the successful investment professional with particular emphasis on valuation analysis."
—Josh Harris, Managing Partner, Apollo Management, LP
"Valuation is the key to any transaction. Investment Banking provides specific step-by-step valuation procedures for LBO and M&A transactions, with lots of diagrams and numerical examples."
—Roger G. Ibbotson, Professor in the Practice of Finance, Yale School of Management Chairman & CIO, Zebra Capital Management, LLC Founder & Advisor, Ibbotson Associates, a Morningstar Company
"Investment banking requires a skill set that combines both art and science. While numerous textbooks provide students with the core principles of financial economics, the rich institutional considerations that are essential on Wall Street are not well documented. This book represents an important step in filling this gap."
—Josh Lerner, Jacob H. Schiff Professor of Investment Banking, Harvard Business School, Coauthor, Venture Capital and Private Equity: A Casebook
"Rosenbaum and Pearl have written the ultimate nuts and bolts guide for valuation. It is the book that every business student should study and every investment banker should use."
—Steven Davidoff, Associate Professor, University of Connecticut School of Law The Deal Professor, The New York Times
From the Inside Flap
Investment Banking: Valuation, Leveraged Buyouts, and Mergers & Acquisitions is a highly accessible and authoritative book that focuses on the primary valuation methodologies currently used on Wall Street—comparable companies, precedent transactions, DCF, and LBO analysis. These methodologies are used to determine valuation for public and private companies within the context of M&A transactions, LBOs, IPOs, restructurings, and investment decisions. Using a step-by-step how-to approach for each methodology, the authors build a chronological knowledge base and define key terms, financial concepts, and processes throughout the book. They also provide a comprehensive overview of the fundamentals of LBOs and an organized M&A sale process.
In the aftermath of the subprime mortgage crisis and ensuing credit crunch, the world of finance is returning to the fundamentals of valuation and critical due diligence. This involves the use of more realistic assumptions governing approach to risk as well as a wide range of value drivers. While valuation has always involved a great deal of "art" in addition to time-tested "science," the artistry is perpetually evolving in accordance with market developments and conditions. In this sense, this book is particularly topical-in addition to detailing the technical fundamentals behind valuation, the authors infuse practical judgment skills and perspective to help guide the science.
From the Back Cover
"Investment Banking provides a highly practical and relevant guide to the valuation analysis at the core of investment banking, private equity, and corporate finance. Mastery of these essential skills is fundamental for any role in transaction-related finance. This book will become a fixture on every finance professional's bookshelf."
—Thomas H. Lee, President, Lee Equity Partners, LLC Founder, Thomas H. Lee Capital Management, LLC
"This book will surely become an indispensable guide to the art of buyout and M&A valuation, for the experienced investment practitioner as well as for the non-professional seeking to learn the mysteries of valuation."
—David M. Rubenstein, Co-Founder and Managing Director, The Carlyle Group
"As a practitioner of hundreds of M&A and LBO transactions during the last 20 years, I recommend this book to advisors, financiers, practitioners, and anyone seriously interested in investment transactions. Rosenbaum and Pearl have created a comprehensive and thoughtfully written guide covering the core skills of the successful investment professional with particular emphasis on valuation analysis."
—Josh Harris, Managing Partner, Apollo Management, LP
"Valuation is the key to any transaction. Investment Banking provides specific step-by-step valuation procedures for LBO and M&A transactions, with lots of diagrams and numerical examples."
—Roger G. Ibbotson, Professor in the Practice of Finance, Yale School of Management Chairman & CIO, Zebra Capital Management, LLC Founder & Advisor, Ibbotson Associates, a Morningstar Company
"Investment banking requires a skill set that combines both art and science. While numerous textbooks provide students with the core principles of financial economics, the rich institutional considerations that are essential on Wall Street are not well documented. This book represents an important step in filling this gap."
—Josh Lerner, Jacob H. Schiff Professor of Investment Banking, Harvard Business School, Coauthor, Venture Capital and Private Equity: A Casebook
"Rosenbaum and Pearl have written the ultimate nuts and bolts guide for valuation. It is the book that every business student should study and every investment banker should use."
—Steven Davidoff, Associate Professor, University of Connecticut School of Law The Deal Professor, The New York Times
About the Author
JOSHUA PEARL is a Director at UBS Investment Bank in Leveraged Finance. He originates, structures, and executes leveraged loan and high yield bond financings, as well as leveraged buyouts, and restructurings. Previously, he worked at Moelis & Company in Capital Markets and Deutsche Bank in Leveraged Finance. He received his BS in Business from Indiana University’s Kelley School of Business.
Product details
- Publisher : Wiley; 1st edition (May 4 2009)
- Language : English
- Hardcover : 336 pages
- ISBN-10 : 0470442204
- ISBN-13 : 978-0470442203
- Item weight : 770 g
- Dimensions : 18.54 x 2.79 x 26.16 cm
- Best Sellers Rank: #803,815 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #873 in Finance Textbooks
- #3,636 in Finance in Accounting
- #5,469 in Finance (Books)
- Customer Reviews:
About the author

JOSHUA PEARL is the Founder and Chief Investment Officer of Hickory Lane, a long/short equity asset manager. He focuses on equity investments and special situations utilizing a fundamentals-based approach. From 2011-2020, he served as a Managing Director and Partner at Brahman Capital. Previously, he structured high yield financings, leveraged buyouts, and restructurings as a Director at UBS Investment Bank. Prior to UBS, he was an investment banker at Moelis & Company and Deutsche Bank. He received his BS in Business from Indiana University's Kelley School of Business. He is also the co-author of Investment Banking: Valuation, LBOs, M&A, and IPOs and The Little Book of Investing Like the Pros.
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I still recommend looking at alternative books which can be more balanced between theory and execution.
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I believe this book is very good for beginners and intermediaries, but still has a lot of potential for improvement to also become more interesting for advanced practitioners. A little expansion with details, more valution aspects and a chapter about restructuring, and this book gets another star.

I do have some academic Accounting experience (several modules as part of an undergrad in Economics) but feel that previous accounting knowledge is not a pre-requisite to begin modelling; as long as one acknowledges their early attempts will likely have little practical value as the 'art' side of accounting (and part where experience is vital) is really where the skill/ value of an analyst comes in.
Having worked through the book, and since that done some of my own modelling, it has proved to be an excellent introduction to this little known to outsiders skill-set. The chapters are well thought out, with references throughout the book and the authors' reasoning is nearly always clearly communicated.
That being said, my first model (a DCF) was still very tough. It required trawling through book, constantly scribbling questions down, using the Excel spreadsheet ("Add comment" quickly became my favourite function within Excel for both my reasoning of the value, the source [as the book says to do] but also for my myriad of questions of how to find the fig., work it out etc. etc.) Even with this handbook it took many hours. However, after a few weeks I finished up with a sensible Equity Valuation of my co.
I should add that I am lucky to have a couple of friends who are analysts, and were a great help on those questions that really stumped me. Without them the process would have been significantly tougher as for all the uses of the internet, very specific accounting questions are still hard to get valuable answers to.
Could the book have had even more detail/ depth? I guess so, but that would defy the point of it being an Introduction, and could easily have meant it was fleshed out to a 700 page behemoth. Add to that the fact each person will always have their own questions as getting to grips with modelling/ learning in general is such a personal process.
I would add that the book is aimed at valuing both listed co.'s and private co.'s. For my needs, I will be modelling listed co.'s and comparing to the street's consensus so many of the steps are actually unecessary as there's more information available - whether that be other analysts research, co.'s IR, Annual Reports etc. so developing these models doesn't have to be quite as painful a process as it first seems.
Lastly, the template spreadsheets are a huge help in getting one started. While you're final piece probably won't look exactly like the author's/ you may have to alter some of the functions/ draw values from different parts of the Income Statement (as the co. may focus on different Earnings values such as EBITDA or NPAT etc.) it was a crucial part of seeing how analysts build their models in practice and made something that may have been overwhelming feel bite-size.
All in, an extremely valuable read and reference book moving forward. It alone won't make you a modelling maestro, but if you use this in conjunction with a mentor or two whom you can turn to where you have specific questions, it will be a hugely valuable and rewarding experience.