In Search of Shareholder Value: Managing the Drivers of Performance

I despair of acedemics intent on picking holes in the acedemic rigour of books on shareholder value. Businesses are run by business managers. They leave "trendy" financial concepts for the FD to trot out to the board, in vain and ad infinitum. Bridge the gap between those who run the business and the cerebral numerates who keep score and you will...create shareholder value...hurray. This book does just that.

I couldn't help but look at some of the reviews, admittedly rather a long time after the 2nd edition now. The book is really designed as a primer on the subject, and also to maintain the links between what is going on in the equity market, and what is going on internally inside the corporates. As such we steered a path between making the book overly complicated and hence off-putting, and between making it overly simple. It was never designed to sell SAP software, as one reviewer suggested, and indeed, its overall position in the PwC offering was less clearcut than it should be. Perhaps to remind readers that it originated from the old PW company might explain rather more. The descriptions and analysis of the models are reasonably correct, including that of the CFROI model - at least judging by the materials I had to hand. The critique on the replacement value of assets and the corresponding weakness of the EVA model is a valid point, made elsewhere, but also picked up in the book I believe. Yes the book has been used extensively by PwC people, but by no means exclusively so. Yes, we did go on to develop a VBM offering out of it, but again not exclusively around the book - though it helped. The combination of the approach (Valuebuilder, which is not for sale), capital markets, consultancy and corporate governance issues remains very useful, and rather distinct from a number of other offerings in the market. So, do continue to buy it and read it !!

Most people hate lots of numbers and formulas. This book handles them well. This book clearly describes the concepts of Shareholder Value. I think this book, and many of its SV kind, are great for corporate financial people who have (mostly) accurate accounting numbers. But for investors looking in from the outside, SV becomes difficult to implement. For example, what truly is EBITDA? Cash Flow? Which one? These illusive investor numbers make the SV process hard to implement for those of us without access to the real corporate books. Or at least, the process of determining the correct numbers is more difficult than the SV process lets on... in the world where accounting numbers and forecasts can be made to be anything the CEO or CFO want. All in all, this methodology has brought a revolution to the corporate financial world. Divisions can now be compared with more rigor. This book easily and clearly explains the logic. The authors care about their subject and it shows. John Dunbar

& #61623; In Search of Shareholder Value: Managing the Drivers of Performance is the PricewaterhouseCoopers book on shareholder value. This is the only shareholder value book which explicitly recognizes the necessity of using industry-specific models and using real option modeling techniques. If you read one book on shareholder value management, this is the book to read.

In Search of Shareholder Value: Managing the Drivers of Performance is the PricewaterhouseCoopers book on shareholder value. This is the only shareholder value book which explicitly recognizes the necessity of using industry-specific models and using real option modeling techniques. If you read one book on shareholder value management, this is the book to read.