Big Deal: Mergers and Acquisitions in the Digital Age

by Bruce Wasserstein

Overview

"Wasserstein is widely recognized as the father of modern-day mergers and acquisitions... [He] explains what drives mergers and how they get done." - USA Today

"Informative and entertaining." - Kirkus Reviews

Big Deal is a penetrating look at the world of mergers and acquisitions by the legendary Bruce Wasserstein. Using compelling case studies, he reveals the inside story of the billion dollar deals that shape America's economy.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780446556378
Publisher:	Grand Central Publishing
Publication date:	02/28/2009
Sold by:	Hachette Digital, Inc.
Format:	eBook
File size:	2 MB

About the Author

Bruce Wasserstein has been on the cover of Fortune(r) and Forbes magazines and has been profiled in every major business publication. As chairman and CEO of Wasserstein, Perella & Co., he masterminded such deals as Time Inc.'s merger with Warner Bros., the takeover of Conrail, and Philip Morris' acquisition of Kraft and General Foods. He currently is executive chairman of Dresdner Kleinwort Wasserstein.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments

Introduction ..... 1

1: The Battle for Paramount ..... 9

2: History's Shadow ..... 29

3: The Rise and Fall of the Conglomerate ..... 55

4: The Deal Decade: Early Years ..... 76

5: Troubled Years ..... 113

6: The Merits of Mergers: The Good, the Bad and the Ugly ..... 134

7: The Strategic Dilemma ..... 161

8: The Energy Wars ..... 171

9: Metamorphosis: Conglomerates Transformed ..... 217

10: Financial Services in the Digital Age ..... 240

11: The Telco Revolution ..... 288

12: Racing Toward Cyberspace: The Media and the Message ..... 348

13: The Tumultuous World of Health Care ..... 408

14: A Guide to the Players ..... 455

15: The Price ..... 493

16: Structuring the Deal ..... 532

17: Implementing the Deal ..... 561

18: Offense: Battlefield Tactics ..... 601

19: Defense: Fight or Sell? ..... 644

20: Defense: Building the Battlements ..... 684

21: Defense: Battlefield Tactics ..... 714

22: The Government Intervenes ..... 747

Postscript ..... 787

Bibliography ..... 793

Index ..... 799

What People are Saying About This

Robert Clark

Lucid and engaging. Wasserstein combines breadth of vision with practical insight and sure sense of relevance. A rare and valuable book.

Editorial Reviews

Fascinating and thorough.

USA Today

Excellent. A helicopter perspective with pithy details. -- Samuel Hayes, Harvard Business School

Samuel Hayes

"Big Deal" is a big deal. -- Sanford I. Weill

Sanford I. Weill

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 playersþalways profiled in sidebars to provide a more personalized view of the conflictsþin 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 amore 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)

Kirkus Reviews