books guidance needed

Water Cooler Careers
#1

I posted this on water cooler earlier and got no reply. Maybe it was a wrong board.

"Whether we work in transaction advisory or equity research, I gather that we ought to have thorough knowledge of different industry sectors - retail, food & beverage, energy, health care, real estate, media, education and the list goes on.

I have had most of my exposure in real estate and heath care in my years of experience in transaction advisory. I feel I know nothing about few other sectors e.g retail is something I have zero knowledge about.

Thus, rather than reading bits and pieces online, I actually want to develop thorough understanding of a few of these sectors. Are there any good books or series of books that give broad knowledge of a few of the mentioned sectors from operations and finance perspective? I am most interested to know about retail, media, health care, food & beverage.

No textbooks please. Those are boring!"

#2

None that I have ever seen (and I’ve looked). The best way to learn is read annual reports and try to understand the businesses more in depth. There is no easy shortcut I have been able to find.

#3

I’m not in investments but if I’m doing a valuation and want to learn the terminology of a new industry or need to write a report, I’ll go to S&P Net Advantage or Ibisworld.

#4

yes there are no cliff notes