The Predators’ Ball: The Inside Story of Drexel Burnham and the Rise of the JunkBond Raiders
During the ’80s, Michael Milken at Drexel Burnham created the corporate raiders. He was the billionaire Junk Bond King. But, in the corner stood the U.S. District Attorney waiting to file criminal and racketeering charges.
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3 thoughts on “The Predators’ Ball: The Inside Story of Drexel Burnham and the Rise of the JunkBond Raiders”
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A Classic Look at the Inside of Milken’s World,
My version of the text is labeled on the front cover as, “The Book Wall Street Couldn’t Stop,” in reference to attempts to prevent its publishing. I believe that those persons that wanted to do so are now content with their failure, as the book does a good job of explaining the brilliance of Milken, the market that he created and nurtured, and the catch-22 that led to his criminilization. As someone who works in banking, it is awe-inspiring to read the descriptions of Milken’s deal-making capabilities and strategies, and at the same point disappointing to see how he slipped from operating in shades of grey to areas of wanting morals. The author does a very good job of illustrating the power Milken had within Drexel, how his office on the West Coast went from being a backwater to accounting for the bulk of the firms revenue, and how Milken’s subsequent removal left Drexel crippled past the point of healing. The inter-office dynamics that Ms. Bruck writes on are present everywhere, but it is difficult to imagine anywhere that they are seen in such extremes.
I highly recommend this book.
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|A groundbreaking book in its day. One that is still great,
Connie Bruck ranks along with Joe Nocera as one of the world’s best business writers. This book is tremendously readable and gives a balanced but insightful look at Michael Milken.
I came away from the book with the idea that Milken was a genius who earned his great fortune with 18 hour work days. and I still believe he had a tremendous and positive contribution to the world.
the Some of my friends came away from the book with the idea that Milken was a horrible human being who was ruining the country. The beauty of the book is that it you can read it and draw your own conclusions rather than a writer’s preconceived ideas.
Buy it and read it again. It is worth always owning.
Don McNay…
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|The Junk Bond King When Much of Corporate America Was His Fiefdom.,
The story of the junk bond market is the story of Michael Milken’s single-minded rise to power. Milken WAS the market, as they say. Accordingly, most of “The Predator’s Ball” is dedicated to Milken’s ambition to fund a new generation of businesses with high-yield low-rated bonds (“junk bonds”), his creation of a department at Drexel that embodied his unique views of productivity and capitalism, and the ways and means to Drexel’s utter domination of the junk bond market in the 1980s. Milken’s larger than life presence is nearly absent, however, from the book’s three longest chapters, which detail successful hostile raids financed by Drexel: Nelson Peltz and Peter May’s buyout of National Can, Carl Icahn takes TWA, and Ron Perelman’s acquisition of Revlon. These chapters are something of a digression in the Milken story, as he was not front and center in the drama, but they provide blow-by-blow accounts of exactly how these leveraged buyouts worked and insight into the realities of LBOs. Michael Milken created a market for junk bonds where there was almost none, sought 100% market share for Drexel, and used that market to change the face of corporate America. He did it by astutely and commendably flouting convention, but did he flout ethics and law as well? Judge for yourself.
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