The Last Tycoons: The Secret History of Lazard Frères & Co.
by William D. Cohan
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Book Summary Information
Author: William D. CohanEdition: Paperback
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published)
Published: 2008-04-08
ISBN: 0767919793
Number of pages: 752
Publisher: Anchor
Book Reviews of The Last Tycoons: The Secret History of Lazard Frères & Co.
Book Review: From a different age
Summary: 5 Stars
With extensive access to all players involved (except one, who declined to be interviewed) William D Cohan does a marvelous job in recounting the history of a bank from another time and the history of investment banking right into the 1990s.
When reading the book I could not escape the feeling that Lazard was almost run like a personal fiefdom of the David-Weills with a few `stars' like Andre Meyer and Felix Rohatyn allowed to drive the business and take their cut along the way without ever questioning the authority of the owner. The bank has done quite well out of this arrangement, but this set-up has made it near impossible to run the bank in a `normal-managed' way. Michel David-Weill's attempts to install a General Manager were always doomed to fail because he would have had to relinquish authority he was unwilling to give up. William D Cohan shows how he drove one after the other `Managing Partner' round the bend if not into the nuthouse. Bruce Wasserstein appears to have got the better of the owners by turning the bank into a `normal' bank. Whether this was a good deed you have to decide for yourself. I thought the bank both gained and lost at the same time.
Summary of The Last Tycoons: The Secret History of Lazard Frères & Co.
A grand and revelatory portrait of Wall Street?s most storied investment bankWall Street investment banks move trillions of dollars a year, make billions in fees, pay their executives in the tens of millions of dollars. But even among the most powerful firms, Lazard Frères & Co. stood apart. Discretion, secrecy, and subtle strategy were its weapons of choice. For more than a century, the mystique and reputation of the "Great Men" who worked there allowed the firm to garner unimaginable profits, social cachet, and outsized influence in the halls of power. But in the mid-1980s, their titanic egos started getting in the way, and the Great Men of Lazard jeopardized all they had built.
William D. Cohan, himself a former high-level Wall Street banker, takes the reader into the mysterious and secretive world of Lazard and presents a compelling portrait of Wall Street through the tumultuous history of this exalted and fascinating company. Cohan deconstructs the explosive feuds between Felix Rohatyn and Steve Rattner, superstar investment bankers and pillars of New York society, and between the man who controlled Lazard, the inscrutable French billionaire Michel David-Weill, and his chosen successor, Bruce Wasserstein.
Cohan follows Felix, the consummate adviser, as he reshapes corporate America in the 1970s and 1980s, saves New York City from bankruptcy, and positions himself in New York society and in Washington. Felix?s dreams are dashed after the arrival of Steve, a formidable and ambitious former newspaper reporter. By the mid-1990s, as Lazard neared its 150th anniversary, Steve and Felix were feuding openly.
The internal strife caused by their arguments could not be solved by the imperious Michel, whose manipulative tendencies served only to exacerbate the trouble within the firm. Increasingly desperate, Michel took the unprecedented step of relinquishing operational control of Lazard to one of the few Great Men still around, Bruce Wasserstein, then fresh from selling his own M&A boutique, for $1.4 billion. Bruce?s take: more than $600 million. But it turned out Great Man Bruce had snookered Great Man Michel when the Frenchman was at his most vulnerable.
The LastTycoons is a tale of vaulting ambitions, whispered advice, worldly mistresses, fabulous art collections, and enormous wealth?a story of high drama in the world of high finance.
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