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Apologies if this thread already exists, but I am planning on going into a transactional practice in the fall that will involve corporate finance and M&A.

Do people have recommendations on some background books to read? I have my finance textbook from law school, so I'm good there.

I'm thinking more along the lines of financial dictionaries or other general background books that would be interesting and useful. Thanks in advance.

cim_can wrote:Apologies if this thread already exists, but I am planning on going into a transactional practice in the fall that will involve corporate finance and M&A.

Do people have recommendations on some background books to read? I have my finance textbook from law school, so I'm good there.

I'm thinking more along the lines of financial dictionaries or other general background books that would be interesting and useful. Thanks in advance.

Fyi, this relates more to finance work. I would get onto Westlaw Business (your school should have a free account you can use) and pull a first lien/second lien credit agreement and an offering memorandum from a bond deal (these are generally filed for public companies as exhibits to their other filings, so you should easily be able to find a couple -- ask the Westlaw rep for help if you need it). Take those two documents and read through them, highlighting/circling other documents referenced (such as "Collateral Agreement", "Intercreditor Agreement" or "Indenture"). Then, go on PLC (http://us.practicallaw.com/) and read the descriptions for all of those documents.

Doing that will put you at least 2 months ahead of where most transactional people are when beginning their job, and will be 1000x more useful than reading a book; everything else you'll learn on the job. All this said, you really don't need to, or should, do much before starting work. You're expected to know nothing, and these are the last few months of "freedom" you'll have for a while -- enjoy them while they last. HTH.

Read A Random Walk Down Wall Street (learn why 99% of what wall street does is for wall street and not for clients) and Barbarians at the Gates (learn how exciting M&A can be if you are writing about it instead of being a first year associate working on it!).

I second Barbarians at the Gates. Very enjoyable read for anyone in transactional work, and incredibly well-written generally.

Read Anatomy of a Merger. It's an old book, but still helpful and relevant. Guaranteed that your library has a copy. Investopedia.com is great for looking up terms and for some articles (albeit more so for looking up terms). There are also a lot of good transactional blogs written by entrepreneurs and funds that can be interesting to provide a business perspective.

An offering memorandum for a bond deal will not be helpful unless you are going to be doing this type of work. Public bond offerings are very different than M&A and corporate finance, so it's really not worth your time. Go to your library and find model asset purchase agreements, merger agreements and stock purchase agreements. Read through the annotations. It's good to understand the basic concepts about how these documents are structured (what reps & warranties are, what covenants are, etc.). Although this may not be immediate relevant for doing diligence, it will be important to understand, at least eventually. Most firms have form diligence checklists which they will share with you when you arrive, whether it be for finance or M&A. These will help steer you through the diligence process.

Comic Wars
it's a lighthearted walk through the bankruptcy and takeover of marvel comics, which was incredibly complicated for several reasons, involved some of the biggest names in finance, and ended up with the company being bought over by its subsidiary

Liar's Poker - interesting finance read and entertaining
Barbarian's at the Gate - M&A book about one of the largest LBO's - very good book
Investment Banking: Valuation, LBO's and M&A - very good book if you are already decently well-read in finance. Gives you a lot of insight into what bankers do.
Monkey Business - easy, interesting read

There are not really interesting books on corporate finance. If you want to understand companies better and the decisions they make and how those decisions affect the marketplace, then read The Intelligent Investor, by Graham - amazing book.

Other than that, start reading bloomberg and financial blogs on a daily basis to start figuring out how the market works and the types of environments that offerings and M&A deals take place in.

http://www.jdsupra.com/legalnews/acquis ... n-f-84538/

All you need. Throw it on your kindle and you're good.

Tag

Latham has "books of jargon" on their home page that are actually pretty good. We use them.

There are many opportunities on the internet. It's always interesting to read someone's expertise in the modern financial system. Personally, I will choose the homelessness essay at https://tooly.io/homelessness/ to learn more for my next exam. Hope that I would spend less time on study than I thought before. At least homelessness essay is really interesting to read.

If you’ll be doing any PE M&A, the Debevoise Private Equity primer is solid

Too Big to Fail is a really good one that hasn't been mentioned yet

The Accidental Investment Banker is a very nice little piece about being a mid-level investment banker and thoughts on how the industry has evolved over time

Working with Contracts by Charles M. Fox.

Subscribe to Matt Levine's MoneyStuff (daily finance newletter written by a former WLRK lawyer). Its informative and a relatively easy read.

https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/autho ... w-s-levine