The Titans of Takeover

This book chronicles the merger wave during the mid seventies to the late eighties. The book looks not only at the raiders, but also at other featured players in the takeover game: the investment bankers, attorneys, and arbitragers, considered the main personalities in the takeover game. You will find many figures depicted in this book. Author Robert Slater was able to bring these players to life with inside descriptions of their lives. Profiled in these pages are the leading figures in the American takeover field. Titans like T. Boone Pickens, Carl Icahn, Saul Steinberg, and Ted Turner. As well as such behind the scenes personalities as lawyers Martin Lipton and Joseph Flom. Investment bankers Joseph Perella and Bruce Wasserstein, famous for staying in the game, gained notoriety by going after clients even after they committed to someone else. A special chapter is dedicated to zooming in on the infamous arbitrager, Ivan Boesky. Who later on in the book clarifies the difference between a raider and an arbitrager by concluding that raiders are not arbitragers, they are party principles seeking control of companies, as opposed to impartial stock market operators, such as his self , who are basically interested in a spread as the reward. Raiders who understand the takeover game realized the sum total of certain companies were worth less than its parts and believed that a company could not enrich itself from a lawsuit; it should only emerge whole. With this so-called credo, they found a reason to keep management on its toes. Out of this audacity and growing phenomenon, management and company boards employed a whole series of defensive tactics, ranging from the poison pill to the highly popular leveraged buyout. Nevertheless, the raiders seemed to know better. Each effort has its own problems, its own solutions. A raider who made a cash offer with an enticing premium knew that stockholders were not going to let a board of directors get in the way of making good money. Aside from stepping over a few minor inconsistencies in historical content, this book will undeniably arouse your attention.