Product Description

The New York Times bestseller about the collapse of a major financial house and Wall Street institution, in paperback for the first time.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #714658 in Books
• Published on: 1985-12-12
• Released on: 1985-12-12
• Original language: English
• Binding: Hardcover
• 253 pages

From Publishers Weekly
Based on probing research, this modern morality tale is an expansion of a 1984 New York Times Magazine article on the ruinous behind-the-scenes struggle between two top officers of the 134-year-old private investment banking firm Lehman Brothers Kuhn Loeb. Auletta (The Art of Corporate Success, etc.) recounts in detail the takeover of the traditional and specialized but dissent-ridden and undercapitalized Wall Street company by an outside trader, the recently formed global giant Shearson/American Express. The new conglomerates that emerge from such moves, Auletta maintains, emphasize transactual, service business rather than advisory functions, and short-term gains at the expense of long-range growth plans. Wall Street, he claims, is well on its way to being dominated by a few superpowers that combine all financial services under one roof. Photos not seen by PW. Major ad/promo; Fortune Book Club selection; BOMC alternate; author tour. January
Copyright 1985 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal
Auletta chronicles the activity at Lehman Brothers during the months between July 1983 and April 1984, immediately preceding the firm's takeover by Shearson/American Express. During that brief period, Auletta reveals, Wall Street's oldest investment banking partnership was simultaneously buffetted by the ambition and greed of one faction and by the complacency and misplaced self-assurance of another group of partners. Details shared after the fact with Auletta by many of the participants make clear, often with self-serving insight, that blame for the takeover could well be shared by more than just the two principal players. This tension born of petty human motives is all the more striking when set against the sophisticated investment banking environment. Most business collections will want this title. Joseph Barth, U.S. Military Acad. Lib., West Point, N.Y.
Copyright 1986 Reed Business Information, Inc.

About the Author
Ken Auletta is the communications columnist for The New Yorker. He is the author of seven books, including the national bestseller Three Blind Mice, and, most recently, The Highwaymen: Warriors of the Information Superhighway.

Customer Reviews

Oh! full of scorpions is my mind (Macbeth)
This is a classic tale of a company run into the ground because it had two CEOs and two different departments fighting one another for the juicy bonuses. Moreover, the CEOs had totally different characters and a completely different business vision. One was extrovert, overambitious, jealous, profoundly selfish, impulsive, volatile, dominated by lust for power, vindictive, an intriguer. The other was rather introvert, cold, too trusting, apersonal, a bad communicator, self-centered, rather an intellectual aristocrat.

The introvert was ousted by the extrovert, who wanted to run his own show.

The house of Lehman was divided in two different clans: the bankers who were rather fixed on medium and long term business with stable clients and the traders who were only fixed on the short term.
While the introvert CEO could stand above both business divisions in the battle for the bonuses, the extrovert was himself a trader and was rather despised by the bankers. When the latter took the rein, key banking personal left the company. The traders wanted to cash in their shares as quickly as possible and the company was gobbled up by a third party.

This story shows also that `human relations matter as much as the bottom-line.'

A very worth-while read.

One of my all time favorite books!
This book is one of my favorites. It's a classic soap opera. What Lehman Brothers was, their glory days, how egos and greed destroy companies. This is a brilliant study of humanity on Wall Street. Fast read and I strongly recommend to anyone who's thinking of getting into the business!

a rich treatment of an important financial event of the 80s
reads like a greek tragedy; rich treatment of the people involved in one of the most important, and most interesting, financial events of the 80s. ranks as one of the most finely crafted books of its type in business; it gives the reader a deep look inside a complicated world and shows us the role of interpersonal relationships in business decision making.