The financial management field continues to experience exciting change and growth. Financial practitioners are increasingly emploving new financial management techniques and sophisticated computer resources to aid in their decision making. ´Financial engineers´ have created new derivative financial instrumenta and transactions, such as options, financial futures contracts, options on futures contracts, foreign currency swaps, and interest rate swaps, to help managers manage risk and increase shareholder wealth. Many domestic industries have been restructured because of the pressures of foreign competition. Leveraged buyout transactions also have forced managers to make more careful use of their firms? resources. The growing private equity markel has added another dimension to the focus on sound management. of a firm?s resources. Corporate reformers have focused attention on the structure of corporate governance relationships and the impact of alternative managerial compensation packages on firm performance. Bankruptcy filings increased dramatically at the end of the 1980s and remained at high levels through 2007. The Internet is transforming the way securities are bought and sold and the way companies access new capital. At the lame time, financia] researchers have malle important advances in the arcas of valuation, cosí of capital, capital structure theory and practice, option valuation (including ´real´ options associated with capital investments), risk management, and dividend policy. Access to and content of the Internet have greatly expanded, making timely financial information increasingly available to customers, investors, and financial managers. Contemporary Corporate Finanie, 11th Edition, incorporates these changes-the increased focus on shareholder wealth maximization and cash flow management, an emphasis on the international aspects of financial management, a concern for the ethical behavior of managers, the role of private equity investors, and the new information available on the Internet-into a text designed primarily for an introductory course in financial management. The book is also suitable for management development programs and as a reference aid to practicing finance professionals. We recognize that students enter lhis course with a vide variety of backgrounds in mathematics, economics, accounting, and statistics. The only presumption we make regarding prior preparation is that all students will have had one course in financial accounting.
