barbarians at the gate
Just finished Barbarians at the Gate, by Bryan Burrough and John Helyar. It tells the story of the largest-ever Wall Street takeover deal, in which several billions of dollars were thrown at tobacco and food company RJR Nabisco. Although it takes a bit of wading through, it’s a fascinating study of the Mad Men-style thrusting young managers of the ’60s becoming the “greed is good” masters of the universe in the ’80s, told in an accessible and off-hand way.
What struck me — apart from the astronomical sums of money involved — was how the personalities of the men involved shaped the deal. You’d think that when people are dealing with companies and money on that scale, they’d be able to set aside their egos to do the most sensible thing. As highlighted when Linda Robinson, the PR guru and the only woman to play a major part in the fracas, intercedes after she decides that:
…the whole fight - the name-calling, the finger-pointing, everything - was getting out of control. There was no earthly reason Kravis couldn’t do this deal with Shearson and Salomon. There was every reason he should.
It was all about egos, Linda Robinson knew. She considered herself highly attuned to the ways of her swaggering Wall Street clients. As so often happened, Peter Cohen and Tommy Strauss and Henry Kravis had lost sight of their of their real objective, RJR Nabisco. Their disagreements had nothing to do with with shareholder values or fiduciary duties. It was a all a test of wills among an intensely competitive clique of macho, Park Avenue bullies… Each was determined to be King of the Sandbox.
The book was the basis of the first ever HBO TV movie, starring James Garner. Lovefilm, added.
December 7th, 2008 at 08:31 pm
The book is great, I do love the HBO version as well though, it makes Wall Street with Michael Douglas look tame at times.