A Giant Cow-Tipping by Savages
The Boom, Bust, and Boom Culture of M&A
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- $11.99
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- $11.99
Publisher Description
Modern mergers and acquisitions, or M&A as it's more commonly known, is a new phenomenon. The buying and selling, the breaking up and combining of companies-the essence of M&A-has been a part of commerce throughout history, but only in our era has M&A itself become a business. In 2007, before the recession hit, it was a $4.4 trillion global enterprise. And yet, it remains largely unexplored. Discrete stories have been pulled from the annals of M&A, both true and fictionalized, that have become touchstones for wealth and excess. Who can forget Gordon Gekko and his "Greed is Good" speech? But while there have been a few iconic characters and tales to emerge, no one has told the rich history of M&A, until now. This is a look into that world and the people who created it. This reads like Dallas meets Wall Street, told through an intriguing narrative that not only brings to light in gritty detail all of the back room drama of such powerful players as Carl Icahn and Ronald Perelman, Marty Lipton and Joe Flom, Jimmy Goldsmith and Sumner Redstone, but also reveals how the new generation, including activist whirlwind Bill Ackman and iconoclastic new Delaware judge Leo Strine, will dominate the next tsunamic, and imminent, M&A boom.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
The mergers and acquisitions industry may seem like it's always been a part of the financial world, but as journalist Weir Close, founder and editor of the M&A Journal, shows, the history of M&A only begins in the mid-1970s. This detailed and lively chronicle looks at the world of M&A, the people who created it, and the next M&A boom. The story begins with Joe Flom and Marty Lipton, two rivals who took advantage of newly instituted government regulations and turned the buying and selling of companies into a profession of its own. Weir Close then takes the reader into the wild excesses of the years that followed, from workplace lunch-hour lap dances to coffee carts stocked with beverages, donuts, and cocaine, and 400-hour work months. In addition to Flom and Lipton, readers meet a host of influencers, including Merrill Lynch's Jeffrey Chandor and Drexel's Michael Milken, as well as famed eccentric Jimmy Goldsmith, who was known for his rubber band phobia. The narrative travels from Hollywood and the battle between John Kluge and Sumner Redstone over Orion, to publishing house Macmillan, to industries too numerous to count. Exhaustive and well written, Weir Close's account offers an insightful look forward and perceptive look back at the world of M&A.
