Best Corporate Finance Books
Know more about corporate finance
What are the Best Corporate Finance Books?
Many corporate finance books are available nowadays, covering various topics from beginner to advanced levels. Finance professionals can access a wide range of resources to learn more about the industry and improve their skills. By reading a book, they can access large volumes of information and research data in a relatively short period of time.
With thousands of corporate finance books available in the market today, the challenge is identifying the best ones. A Google search of the term “best corporate finance books” will give you several pages of results from various authors. Don’t worry – we’ve come up with a list of books that can help enrich your finance knowledge and aid in your career growth in the industry.
Introduction to Corporate Finance Books
Here are some of the best corporate finance books for building knowledge and learning the fundamentals of the finance industry.
1. Corporate Finance: Theory and Practice – Pierre Vernimmen, Pascal Quiry, Maurizio Dallochio, Yann Le Fur, and Antonio Salvi
A favorite among both students and professionals, this book offers a comprehensive tour of corporate finance, using scenario-based instructions with a global perspective.
2. Corporate Finance: The Basics – Terence C.M. Tse
Tse’s book presents the inner workings of corporate finance in a simple and easy-to-understand manner, aiming to add fun to an industry that can come off as intimidating to some.
3. Financial Terms Dictionary – Thomas Herold
Herold’s book is a practical guide that will help you understand the most common terms used by finance professionals.
Free Corporate Finance eBooks
While it may be difficult to obtain finance books from publishers for free, many websites publish their own ebooks. For finance professionals who prefer using gadgets over bringing a lot of physical books, ebooks are the way to go. These are convenient, enabling people to read about corporate finance anytime, anywhere. Here are a few free ebooks to consider:
1. Fundamentals of Corporate Finance – Richard A. Brealey, Stewart C. Myers, and Alan J. Marcus
This student-friendly book takes an innovative and market-driven approach to discuss the current environment of corporate finance.
2. Essentials of Corporate Finance – Stephen Ross, Randolph Westerfield, and Bradford Jordan
This book contains 18 chapters that cover three basic themes: an emphasis on intuition, a unified valuation approach, and a managerial focus.
Advanced Corporate Finance Books
Whether you’re studying for an MBA or looking to improve skills in your current role, investing in advanced corporate finance books can be key to achieving significant career progression.
1. Risk Management: The Ultimate Guide to Financial Risk Management as Applied to Corporate Finance – Greg Shields
Some of the topics discussed in this book include the benefits of good risk management, enterprise risk management, and instruments for managing risks.
2. Continuous-Time Models in Corporate Finance – Santiago Moreno-Bromberg and Jean-Charles Rochet
Students, researchers, and professionals will find the book useful, as it covers the dynamic models of corporate finance decisions, from dividend distribution and issuance of securities to capital structure.
3. Corporate Finance: Investment and Advisory Applications – Jesse McDougall and Patrick Boyle
Written by finance professionals for finance professionals, a book designed for those who are starting a career in investment banking and asset management.
Best-selling Corporate Finance Books of All Time
A lot of corporate finance books make it to the shelves of bookstores around the world, but there are some resources that are considered the go-to books of many professionals in the industry. Here are some of them:
1. Financial Modeling – Simon Benninga
Benninga’s book is considered the standard text to explain financial models in Excel. Using detailed spreadsheets, the book tackles basic and advanced models in the areas of corporate finance, options, bonds, and portfolio management.
2. Understanding Corporate Finance – John Cousins
Cousins’ book provides a framework on how companies make decisions about investing money and which projects to implement. It also provides analytical tools for spending and saving money, and guidance on how to make good financial decisions.
3. Lessons in Corporate Finance: A Case Studies Approach to Financial Tools, Financial Policies, and Valuation – Paul Asquith and Lawrence A. Weiss
This book follows an intuitive approach in explaining all areas of corporate finance, including capital structure, company valuation, dividends, debt maturity, ratios, and pro formas.
You may also want to check out CFI’s extensive library of free ebooks covering a wide array of business topics. Download the free ebooks here.
Additional Resources
CFI is the official provider of the Financial Modeling and Valuation Analyst (FMVA)™ certification program, designed to transform anyone into a world-class financial analyst.
To keep learning and developing your knowledge of financial analysis, we highly recommend the additional CFI resources below:
- Best Financial Modeling Books
- Top Finance and Investing Books
- Financial Ratios Cheat Sheet
- The Analyst Trifecta® Guide
