Frequently Asked Questions in Corporate Finance

Pascal Quiry is a professor of finance at the leading European business school HEC Paris, and a managing director in the Corporate Finance arm of BNP Paribas specializing in M&A. Maurizio Dallocchio is Bocconi University Nomura Chair of Corporate Finance and Past Dean of SDA Bocconi, School of Management.Yann Le Fur is a corporate finance teacher at HEC Paris business school and an investment banker with Mediobanca in Paris after several years with Schroders and Citi.Antonio Salvi is Full Professor of Corporate Finance at Jean Monnet University, Italy. He also teaches corporate finance at EMLyon Business School and SDA Bocconi School of Management.Pierre Vernimmen who died in 1996, was both an M&A dealmaker and a finance teacher at HEC Paris. His book, Finance d’Entreprise, was and still is the top-selling financial textbook in French-speaking countries and is the forebear of Corporate Finance: Theory and Practice.

• 1 Frequently Asked Questions 12 Topics 40950 years of research in finance 410Ten deadly mistakes in corporate finance 412Five mistakes in corporate valuation 423M&A: Six mistakes to be avoided 429Rating agencies 432Credit scoring 435Behavioral finance: are investors really rational? 438Micro-finance: helping the poor 444Project finance 449Corporate finance in Europe: confronting theory with practice 454Capital markets: some useful definitions 457Transaction multiples: before and during the crisis 459The making of an investment banker 469Corporate finance books 472Brainteasers – PART I 475Brainteasers – PART II 478Answers 481True or false: test yourself 482Answers 484Crossword 487Index 493