Vous voulez voir cette page en français ? Cliquez ici.

Have one to sell? Sell yours here
Big Deal: Mergers and Acquisitions in the Digital Age
 
 
Share your own customer images
Search inside this book

Big Deal: Mergers and Acquisitions in the Digital Age [Paperback]

Bruce Wasserstein (Author)
5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)

Available from these sellers.


Formats

 Amazon Price New from Used from
Hardcover --   -- --
Paperback --   -- --

Product Details

Product Description

From Amazon

Nothing in business is more shrouded in secrecy and mystery than "doing the deal." The dealmakers themselves are usually flamboyant, the sums of money involved are vast, and the number of people who are affected by the deal are many. So it's no wonder that the media loves to cover stories like the QVC/Viacom battle over Paramount or Worldcom's recent takeover bids--deals like these can dominate headlines for days. Big Deal is about this high stakes game of corporate mergers and acquisitions. Author Bruce Wasserstein, himself a participant in many of these deals through his firm Wasserstein, Perella & Co., writes a highly readable and fascinating account that covers the history, personalities, and mechanics of mergers and acquisitions.

Wasserstein sees five waves of mergers beginning in the mid-1800s: the first wave involved the building of the railroad empires; the second in the 1920s saw a period of merger mania which was fueled in part by a frothy stock market and rapid industrial growth; the third wave happened during the "Go-Go Years" of the 1960s, which witnessed the rise of the conglomerate; the fourth occurred with the hostile takeovers of the 1980s, driven by names such as Icahn, Boesky, and Milken; and finally Wasserstein sees a fifth wave happening today. He attributes the current explosion of mergers and acquisitions to the need for companies to reposition themselves in today's ever changing competitive environment.

Wasserstein peppers the book with thumbnail personality profiles of some of the big dealmakers including Barry Diller, Sumner Redstone, Carl Icahn, T. Boone Pickens, and Bernard Ebbers. He also considers the many techniques and strategies employed by the dealmakers--poison pills, proxy fights, and bear hugs. Trends such as globalization, deregulation, and profound technological change are causing mergers and acquisitions to happen more than ever, and Big Deal provides a good foundation for understanding why and how these deals happen. --Harry C. Edwards --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Kirkus Reviews

Everything you could ever want to know about big business deals (as long as you don't want to think too deeply about them). More akin to People magazine than an economic tract, the emphasis here is on people and headlines; this is not the place to seek insight into the broader implications of changing corporate structures for the economy or the nation, or grand theories of private enterprise. As a participant in mega-mergers for many years (including the Time-Warner merger) as a lawyer and banker, Wasserstein (With Justice For Some, 1971) provides an insider's account that is journalistic, fun, and basically uncritical. The volume is loosely organized into sections on history, specific industries, and tactics, but the mode of operation throughout is storytelling. Beginning with the battle between QVC chairman Barry Diller and Viacom's Sumner Redstone over the acquisition of Paramount, we meet the major playersalways profiled in sidebars to provide a more personalized view of the conflictsin the business deals that have dominated headlines in the past and especially recent years. The nomenclature is explained along the way, and in a world where you could encounter white knights or squires, poison pills, bear hugs, shark repellents, an IPO, the LIBOR, or even LBOs, this is no small contribution. The discussions of activity in the financial, telecommunications, and health- care industries are especially interesting, but few if any stones are left unturned: Wasserstein possesses a truly encyclopedic knowledge of corporate merger activity, and he shares it. Indeed, a more rigorous selection of material illustrating clearer themes in a shorter volume might have produced a more powerful book; the lack of anything that could be called a conclusion illustrates the somewhat directionless quality of the narrative. Nevertheless, Wasserstein's effort is informative and entertaining. (Radio satellite tour) -- Copyright ©1998, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
See all Product Description
Inside This Book (Learn More)
First Sentence
The dawn of the new millennium has been accompanied by a frenetic quest for the business model of the future. Read the first page
Explore More
Concordance
Browse Sample Pages
Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt | Index | Back Cover
Search inside this book:

Tag this product

 (What's this?)
Think of a tag as a keyword or label you consider is strongly related to this product.
Tags will help all customers organize and find favorite items.
Your tags: Add your first tag
 
See most popular tags
 

Customer Reviews

3 Reviews
5 star:
 (3)
4 star:    (0)
3 star:    (0)
2 star:    (0)
1 star:    (0)
 
 
 
 
 
Average Customer Review
5.0 out of 5 stars (3 customer reviews)
 
 
 
 
Share your thoughts with other customers:
Most helpful customer reviews

5.0 out of 5 stars Wow! An incredible amount of great info in a single volume!, Nov 29 2002
By 
Craig Matteson (Saline, MI) - See all my reviews
(TOP 1000 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   
This review is from: Big Deal: Mergers and Acquisitions in the Digital Age (Paperback)
What an incredible resource! I bought this book because it was on the suggested reading list for a course on Corporate Control I took in the MBA program at the University of Michigan b-school. Yes, it is almost 900 pages long. Yes, some of the stories could use a bit of updating because of the recent events at places like Tyco and Worldcom. But so what? It is nice to have on record how people used to think and talk about these businesses and their CEOs.

That little tiny caveat aside it is important to focus on everything you get in this really neat book. You get a history of the different waves of the M&A process throughout history, how it has evolved, the way it has developed in different industries and market sectors, and a rather nice analysis (in the broadest strokes) of what goes in planning and executing these deals.

Throughout the book there are wonderful spotlights on the principle people in the history of M&A and little synopses of the more famous and important precedent setting deals. This aspect of the book is incredibly valuable. In order to make sense of what we read about in the paper about mergers and acquisitions we need to know how we got here. This book provides an incredible amount of wonderful background material. Some complain that the book is long. I think it is amazing that he has put so much in only 900 pages. Amazingly compact!

Mr. Wassertein, one of the industries movers and shakers (currently running Lazard), has organized this book in twenty-three chapters that are grouped in three large sections: (1) Past as Prelude, (2) The Strategic Challenge, and (3) Doing the Deal. Plus there is a nice bibliography (also grouped in according to these three sections) that can lead to further reading on the topics of interest to you. The index is also quite useful because this book can be used for reference in looking up or reviewing specific topics.

Yes, reading this book front to back is a great read, but you cannot remember it all the first time through. It is useful to be able to dive into specific deals, people, and topics. The author has put this book together in a thoughtful and helpful way.

If you want scandal and gossip, well, this book really isn't for you. However, if you are interested in the BUSINESS of M&A this is a six star book. It really is terrific.

Help other customers find the most helpful reviews 
Was this review helpful to you? Yes No


5.0 out of 5 stars Extremely dry book, July 19 2002
By 
D. Friedman (New York, NY United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   
This review is from: Big Deal: Mergers and Acquisitions in the Digital Age (Paperback)
This book makes the Mojave look positively flush with water. Mr. Wasserstein addresses a fascinating topic--mergers and acquistions--with all the passion of a mortician.

Why the five stars? Mr. Wasserstein also happens to be a brilliant attorney, and have a remarkably substantive body of knowledge about innumerable large acquistions that have occurred over the past thirty years. Indeed, in his bibliography, he writes: "Much of the contemporary factual material in this book is drawn from memory." That is an especially impressive statement, given that the book weighs in at over 900 pages.

Read the book if only to be impressed at the mind of such a man.

Interesting side note: Mr. Wasserstein's sister is a Pulitzer-prize-winning playwright, Wendy Wasserstein. Her plays evince a passion utterly lacking in _Big Deal_.

Help other customers find the most helpful reviews 
Was this review helpful to you? Yes No


5.0 out of 5 stars Highly Recommended!, Mar 20 2002
By 
Rolf Dobelli "getAbstract" (Switzerland) - See all my reviews
(TOP 1000 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   
This review is from: Big Deal: Mergers and Acquisitions in the Digital Age (Paperback)
M&A tycoon Bruce Wasserstein has not just studied the high-stakes world of corporate mergers & acquisitions, he's lived it. As head of M&A at First Boston and then as leader of his own firm, Wasserstein has played a role in many pivotal corporate marriages. In these pages, Wasserstein comprehensively examines the hows and whys of history's largest deals. While skirting the fundamental question of whether mergers & acquisitions enhance or depress shareholder value over the long term, Wasserstein conveys an overwhelming amount of information about the dynamics and tactics that define M&A. The book is enormous and encyclopedic, so it might serve better as a reference text than a straight-through read. We from getAbstract strongly recommend this book for both its compelling historic accounts of Wall Street's most important deals and deal makers and its detailed breakdown of how the game actually works.
Help other customers find the most helpful reviews 
Was this review helpful to you? Yes No

Share your thoughts with other customers: Create your own review
Want to see more reviews on this item?
› Go to Amazon.com to see all 26 reviews  3.9 out of 5 stars 
 
 
Only search this product's reviews


Listmania!

Create a Listmania! list

Look for similar items by category

Look for similar items by subject






















i.e., each book must be in subject 1 AND subject 2 AND ...

Feedback

Would you like to update product info or give feedback on images?