This book is aimed at students who have only an elementary knowledge of financial concepts. It considers the following big decisions that all companies have to address:

1. 1. how to raise capital

2. 2. how to decide in which projects to invest the capital

3. 3. how to determine the distribution of excess cash flows

4. 4. how to manage risk

This book deals with all of these questions.

My philosophy regarding the teaching of finance is that it is a real-life subject and an applied discipline. The approach in this book follows this philosophy. Where applicable, real-world examples are provided and, where appropriate, examples are supported by spreadsheet solutions. To help with your understanding, please view the Excel solution for each exercise and example, and determine for yourself how the answer changes when key input data is varied.

The content of this book is drawn from materials developed and delivered at Liverpool John Moores University and the University of Liverpool. My thanks go to the students of those universities for maintaining my love of finance. In addition I would like to thank Alison Welsby for her infinite patience and thorough editing of the manuscript. Finally, I would like to thank JISC, without whose support I would not have had the drive to complete this book.