The Last Tycoons, William Cohan
The Last Tycoons, William Cohan
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The Last Tycoons
The Secret History of Lazard Freres & Co.

Author: William Cohan

Narrator: Robertson Dean

Unabridged: 32 hr 46 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Published: 04/17/2007


Synopsis

A grand and revelatory portrait of Wall Street’s most storied investment bank

Wall Street investment banks move trillions of dollars a year, make billions in fees, pay their executives in the tens of millions of dollars. But even among the most powerful firms, Lazard Frères & Co. stood apart. Discretion, secrecy, and subtle strategy were its weapons of choice. For more than a century, the mystique and reputation of the "Great Men" who worked there allowed the firm to garner unimaginable profits, social cachet, and outsized influence in the halls of power. But in the mid-1980s, their titanic egos started getting in the way, and the Great Men of Lazard jeopardized all they had built.

William D. Cohan, himself a former high-level Wall Street banker, takes the reader into the mysterious and secretive world of Lazard and presents a compelling portrait of Wall Street through the tumultuous history of this exalted and fascinating company.  Cohan deconstructs the explosive feuds between Felix Rohatyn and Steve Rattner, superstar investment bankers and pillars of New York society, and between the man who controlled Lazard, the inscrutable French billionaire Michel David-Weill, and his chosen successor, Bruce Wasserstein.

Cohan follows Felix, the consummate adviser, as he reshapes corporate America in the 1970s and 1980s, saves New York City from bankruptcy, and positions himself in New York society and in Washington. Felix’s dreams are dashed after the arrival of Steve, a formidable and ambitious former newspaper reporter. By the mid-1990s, as Lazard neared its 150th anniversary, Steve and Felix were feuding openly.
 
The internal strife caused by their arguments could not be solved by the imperious Michel, whose manipulative tendencies served only to exacerbate the trouble within the firm. Increasingly desperate, Michel took the unprecedented step of relinquishing operational control of Lazard to one of the few Great Men still around, Bruce Wasserstein, then fresh from selling his own M&A boutique, for $1.4 billion.  Bruce’s take: more than $600 million. But it turned out Great Man Bruce had snookered Great Man Michel when the Frenchman was at his most vulnerable. 

The LastTycoons is a tale of vaulting ambitions, whispered advice, worldly mistresses, fabulous art collections, and enormous wealth—a story of high drama in the world of high finance. 

About The Author

William D. Cohan was an award-winning investigative journalist before embarking on a seventeen-year career as an investment banker on Wall Street. He spent six years at Lazard Frères in New York and later became a Managing Director at JPMorgan Chase & Co. He is a graduate of Duke University and received both an MS from Columbia University's Graduate School of Journalism and an MBA from its Graduate School of Business. He lives in New York City and Columbia County, New York.


Reviews

Goodreads review by Maciej

The Last Tycoons, won the Business Book of the Year by Goldman Sachs in 2007. It tells a story of Lazard, a financial advisory and asset management firm. It is especially the history of the incredible people who worked there, at an obscure French investment bank, once so mysterious and so poorly und......more

Goodreads review by Kirk

Lazard Ltd is one of the most prestigious investment banks in the world, yet one of the least recognisable to the general public. Everybody has an opinion on the dubious nature of corporate- lending institutions that are supposed to oil the wheels of economic growth, yet Lazard Ltd has faced none of......more

Goodreads review by Ron

The author is a former banker and journalist, and he writes like the former. His stylistic quirks - he tends to complete rather nondescript thoughts with menaningless quotations from the players which add nothing - are annoying and amateurish. And while it is well researched and footnoted, the histo......more

Goodreads review by Tom

Subtitled “The Secret History of Lazard Frères & Co. ”, this is the story of simultaneous birth of globe-spanning financial empires and financial mismanagement that could harm millions.......more


Quotes

WINNER OF THE FINANCIAL TIMES AND GOLDMAN SACHS BUSINESS BOOK OF THE YEAR AWARD

"Rips the roof off of one of Wall Street's most storied investment banks." 
—Vanity Fair

“Cohan’s portrayal of the firm's dominant partners—whose gargantuan appetites and mercurial habits provide the unifying force behind the book’s operatic melodramas—makes this an epic ... In fact, The Last Tycoons bears a striking resemblance to F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Last Tycoon.”
—The New York Times Book Review

“Breezy and highly readable ... For those of us who enjoy high-level gossip (most people) and an inside look at the machinations, triumphs, failures, and foibles of some of Wall Street’s and America’s most exalted personages, Cohan’s book is entertaining and seductively engrossing.”
Chicago Tribune

“Cohan's thoroughness—he interviewed over 100 current and former bankers and assorted bigwigs—unearths a trove of colourful titbits, many quite racy ... Illuminating are Mr. Cohan’s descriptions of the scheming, politicking, and general dysfunction that was Lazard.”
—The Economist

“Cohan not only knows where the bodies are buried but got a guided tour of the graveyard.”
—Financial Times

“[The Last Tycoons] has sent a jolt through Lazard and the rest of Wall Street.”
—The Wall Street Journal