Beyond the bottom line - Alan Warner

In this fascinating sequel to The Bottom Line Phil Moorley finds himself president of a large US food manufacturer, and facing a takeover bid from Universal, his previous employer. He finds that the financial knowledge acquired in The Bottom Line is not enough to cope with this new challenge. As before, he turns for help to management consultant Christine Goodhart. The takeover bid is resolved and, in the course of it, the reader learns about evaluating an acquisition; price/earnings ratio and market capitalization; treatment of goodwill; asset valuations, including brands; dividend yield and dividend cover, and the factors affecting share price. - - Moorley offers Christine the job as his VP Finance, with consequences which do more for his company than for his marriage. The second half of the book describes how Phil and Christine work together to develop improved management accounting information systems to support their strategic decision-making. The subjects covered include principles of financial measurement; replacement cost accounting; limiting factor analysis; price/volume sensitivities; ratios for competitor analysis; Pareto analysis of product/customer profiles; strategic profitability evaluations; post audit of investment appraisals, and direct product profitability techniques. - - Readers will find that they are able to consolidate the knowledge gained from The Bottom Line and be introduced to some advanced but practical concepts of finance rarely dealt with in conventional textbooks.