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Here is the engrossing story of the original corporate raider, Thomas Mellon Evans, who, half a century ago, pioneered a business style that forever changed the American commercial landscape and, ultimately, American life. In The White Sharks of Wall Street, New York Times investigative reporter Diana B. Henriques has crafted a well-researched and entertaining account of this renegade trailblazer, who championed "shareholder rights" and "down-sized" companies, and built "conglomerates," decades before the terms had been coined.
Preferring to call himself a "corporate re-juvenator," Evans often worked without a salary, pealing off assets, eliminating entire layers of middle management, always obsessed with the bottom line. He waged war with unparalleled brilliance, accusing corporate America of forgetting who its real owners were. Henriques writes, "Evans was a man so far ahead of his contemporaries that he had moved into the shadows before the full daylight of his business style had dawned on the rest of Corporate America. At every step of his career, he was barging in where few would follow--at first. But follow they did, at last." Proxy fights, hostile takeovers, tenders and countertenders, greenmail, golden parachutes, poison pills, and shark repellent--it's all here, the deep roots of present-day corporate merger and acquisitions strategy. White Sharks is a compelling and dramatic story of power, greed, ambition, and personal tragedy that illuminates an otherwise obscure period of Wall Street history. --Scott Harrison
Book Description
It almost seems that Thomas Mellon Evans was a man so far ahead of his contemporaries that he had moved into the shadows before the full force of his business style had dawned on the rest of corporate America. At every step in his career, he was barging in where few would follow -- at first. But follow they did, at last."
-- from the Prologue
The first in-depth portrait of the life and times of the trailblazing financier Thomas Mellon Evans -- the man who pursued wealth and power in the 1950s with a brash ruthlessness that forever changed the face of corporate America.
Long before Michael Milken was using junk bonds to finance corporate takeovers, Thomas Mellon Evans used debt, cash, and the tax code to obtain control of more than eighty American companies. Long before investors began to lobby for "shareholder's rights," Evans was demanding that public companies be run only for their shareholders -- not for their employees, their executives, or their surrounding communities. To some, Evans's merciless style presaged much that is wrong with corporate life today. To others, he intuitively knew what was needed to keep America competitive in the wake of a global war.
In The White Sharks of Wall Street, New York Times investigative reporter Diana Henriques provides the first biography of this pivotal figure in American business history. She also portrays the other pioneering corporate raiders of the postwar period, such as Robert Young and Louis Wolfson, and shows how these men learned from one another and advanced one another's takeover tactics. She relates in dramatic detail a number of important early takeover fights -- Wolfson's challenge to Montgomery Ward, Young's move on the New York Central Railroad, the fight for Follansbee Steel -- and shows how they foreshadowed the desperate battle waged by Tom Evans's son, Ned Evans, to keep the British raider Robert Maxwell away from his Macmillan publishing empire during the 1980s. Henriques also reaches beyond the business arena to tally the tragic personal cost of Evans's pursuit of success and to show how the family dynasty shattered when his sons were driven by his own stubbornness and pride to become his rivals. In the end, the battling patriarch faced his youngest son in a poignant battle for control at the Crane Company, the once-famous Chicago plumbing and valve company that Tom Evans had himself seized in a brilliant takeover coup twenty-five years earlier.
The White Sharks of Wall Street is a fascinating portrait of an extraordinary man, whose career blazed across the sky and then sank into obscurity -- but not before he had provided the template for how American business would operate for the next four decades.
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Long before Michael Milken was using junk bonds to finance corporate takeovers, Thomas Mellon Evans used debt, cash, and the tax code to obtain control of more than eighty American companies. Long before investors began to lobby for "shareholder's rights", Evans was demanding that public companies be run only for their shareholders -- not for their employees, their executives, or their surrounding communities. To some, Evans's merciless style presaged much that is wrong with corporate life today. To others, he intuitively knew what was needed to keep America competitive in the wake of a global wax.
In The White Sharks of Wall Street, New York Times investigative reporter Diana Henriques provides the first biography of this pivotal figure in American business. She portrays the other pioneering corporate raiders of the Postwar period, such as Robert Young and Louis Wolfson, and shows how these men learned from and advanced each others' tactics. She reaches beyond the business arena to tally the tragic personal cost of Evans's pursuit of success and the family dynasty that shattered when his sons were driven by his own stubbornness and pride to become his rivals. The result is a fascinating portrait of an extraordinary man whose career blazed across the sky and then sank into obscurity -- but not before he had provided the template for how American business would operate for the next four decades.
Customer Reviews:
A solid book on the history of corporate raiders.......2001-11-01
I found this book to be filled with fascinating stories about Thomas Evans and other like him who changed the face of Wall Street in the 50's. As far as corporate raiders, most people only think back to the 1980's for when it began. This book will give you insight into how it all began half a century ago. It is not just a single story, but numerous ones about various radiers and the companies they targeted. For anyone who wants to learn about Wall Street history, this book is a must.
Must read financial history.......2000-07-28
An important book that covers an overlooked era and subject.
If there was not blood to attract them, they created it........2000-05-03
This book filled a gap for me in the history of Wall Street and some of its more colorful participants. I think there is a tendency for the more notable "raiders" and their like to be confined to the 1980's and 1990's, and as this book points out this could not be further from the truth.
This book chronicles the exploits of men like; Thomas Mellon Evans, Lou Wolfson, and Leopold Silverstein. These individuals were out inventing the type of financial transactions that today are commonplace, and seem to have a rather brief history. The truth is that these; raiders, proxy fighters, liquidators, were using sinking funds, Leveraged Buy Outs, and Junk Bonds long before Michael Milken heard the term. In fact much of this took place before he and Ivan Boesky and their crowd were born.
The book delves into specific deals that are enticing reading just by there names. In 1955 a complicated price-fixing scheme that included companies still doing business today operated a system known as the "phase of the moon".
Shark-repellent, poison pills, greenmail, side deals, collusion were all in a days work. What was also interesting is these people never had their fill, many ending in bankruptcy court half a century after they had started.
The did what they had to do to get what they wanted, and if that meant convincing a 90 year old woman to part with her shares, it was just another day in the trenches.
I would highly recommend this book for anyone interested in Wall Street History in general, and the specific predecessors of today's big names. Long before "Chainsaw Al" there were men hacking away at companies that even he would have found audacious.
The Authoress does a wonderful job of relating this History in a readable easily accessible format, which is well worth a reader's time. You will be amply rewarded.
I don't know how Trump got in this; his contribution was an endorsement on the book jacket. Not one of his deals made the book.
Great addition to your financial library.
Book Description
“I have always chased my father, chased after his love, chased him through his many changes.
I chased him even when I thought I was running in the other direction.
Today, even though he is gone, I chase him still.
I know he is the key to my freedom.”
To runners around the world, Dr. George Sheehan, author of the landmark New York Times bestseller
Running and Being, was nothing short of a guru — the country’s “greatest philosopher of sport.”
But to his son Andrew, who had spent his entire boyhood longing for the attention and approval of an emotionally distant father, he was an incomprehensible paradox: a lifelong loner, who was now sunning himself in the spotlight of the nation’s press; a hero to millions, who seemed to have no time for his own son.
The events that transformed George Sheehan from doctor to family man to bestselling author and media magnet began at the depths of what we would now call a midlife crisis, when he rediscovered an old love — running.
Twenty-five years after his days on a high school cross-country team, he remembered how running made him feel free, and began beating a solitary path down his suburban streets. With running as his new religion, the formerly quiet, withdrawn man became an unlikely evangelist, converting a sedentary nation to the theology of fitness, and in the process becoming an internationally known figure.
But the freedom he found in running was not enough, and one day he left his family, having decided that life was “an experiment of one,” and it was time for him to start living it.
Angry and disillusioned after years of enduring his father’s self-absorption, and hurt by his apparent indifference, Andrew had long since begun the search for his own version of freedom, looking first to drugs and later to alcohol. By his twenties he was a confirmed alcoholic. By his thirties his marriage had fallen apart and he was drinking more heavily than ever.
It was at that moment that his father threw him a lifeline. Although he was struggling with the cancer that would eventually end his life, Dr. Sheehan was the first to notice his son’s pain, and to reach out to him.
In this stunningly candid book, Andrew Sheehan describes the process through which these two men carefully and lovingly rebuilt their relationship. And in the effort to understand and forgive the dark side of his father’s psyche, Andrew shows how he came to understand, and to transcend, his own.
A gracefully written paean to the healing power of forgiveness, a memoir that will resonate with any “fallible” parent or child,
Chasing the Hawk traces the arduous steps that carry father and son down the hard road to resolution, healing, and love.
From the Hardcover edition.
Customer Reviews:
This is a book more than about running.......2007-08-29
I picked up this book thinking the theme of father-son relationship/s would be good for me to read but it was more than that..it was about the love of running and family relationships. I liked reading this book.
A Nice Surprise.......2002-12-28
This is a wonderful story, marvelously written. I didn't expect much when I first picked it up - - another child of the famous capitalizing on their parent's fame - - but after a few pages I simply couldn't put it down. The book is captivating, and I hope we hear more from its talented author in the future. Thanks for sharing your story with us, Andrew!
the examined life.......2002-03-10
Andrew Sheehan writes well this rite-of-passage story of an alienated son making peace with his aging father. He also unblinkingly chronicles his own descent into drink as a young man, and the trail of broken relationships he left behind. At the close of the book, we are cheering for both Andrew and his father, "Dr. Runner" George, as they find peace and a measure of happiness with each other.
Both men are seekers; for a large part of his life, George combed through the works of the philosophers, and left and later returned to, the Catholic faith of his youth. As one of 12 children (what a brood, even for the post-WW II era!),George seeks love and attention which he felt lacking in his childhood,
as he was crowded in the late-middle of the group of children.
"The unexamined life is not worth living," one of the Greeks
tells us, and both men tend to examine their lives in great detail. Indeed, they both stop just short of navel gazing, an activity to which this reviewer is opposed. Too much examining can block one from living, I would put forward as a corollary to the philosopher.
That said, this worthwhile book is an addition to the literature of father-son conflicts. Its upbeat conclusion which surprise and warm you.
memories.......2002-02-07
If... you are a babyboomer If... you are a runner.. and if your life was complicated by a fathers dominance and isolation then this book is for you!
ANDREW SHEEHAN tells the story of his famous father the late GEORGE SHEEHAN a doctor who's passion for running consumed not only a country but himself ,hes family and everyone around him.
THE authors eloquent discription of growing up in a large irish-catholic family,his long battle with alcohol,the abandment of a father.The nostalgia was at times so overwhelming it brought me to tears...because my life so closely mirrored that of andy sheehan
the church the rejection the Kennedys growing up in the 60's the BEATLES the war the drugs.this book will take you back to a place and time in our lives that made our generation so special
Surprisingly well written and an excellent story.......2001-11-17
I picked up this book inclined to not like it as another celebrity book, and a minor celebrity at that. I feared it would just be a son picking nits and blaming his father for the bad turn his life had taken. However, this book is an excellent story of a father-son relationship, personal redemption and the search for meaning in life. It is far easier to appreciate this book's excellence if you have no prior involvement with the father's work.
Average customer rating:
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A Companion to Latin American Film (Monografías A)
Stephen M. Hart
Manufacturer: Tamesis Books
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ASIN: 1855661063 |
Book Description
This Companion to Latin American Film is a new, up-to-date introduction to the best twenty-five films of the region. It is designed for the general reader who wants to know the basic facts, figures and ideas about the movies in Latin America. The introductory essay traces the history of Latin American cinema from its humble beginnings in the mid- 1890s until the smash hits of recent years: Like Water for Chocolate (1993), Central Station (1998), Love's a Bitch (2000), And your Mother Too (2001), City of God (2002). The early period when Latin American cinema was dominated by foreign film makers or foreign models (such as Hollywood), as well as the 1960s when as a genre it finally found its feet (the New Latin-American Cinema movement) - are also covered in depth. Each film chapter contains all the information you need -- cast and crew, awards, plot -- as well as a detailed analysis of the themes and techniques which make the film tick. There is a Guide to Further Reading which offers the reader advice on what to read next (all the important books, articles and Internet sites), as well as a Select Bibliography and an extensive index for ease of reference.
Customer Reviews:
to be avoided.......2007-04-23
This is an astonishingly bad book that I consulted while teaching a course on Latin American culture. For example, the entry for "City of God" (the movie that provides the image used on the cover of this book) has several errors in its plot synopsis and then proceeds to cite several unpublished conference papers, a few short journalistic film reviews and makes far-fetched comparisons to Garcia Marquez's prose, presumably because he, too, is Latin American. To make matters worse, the writing is clunky even when it manages to be accurate.
Book Description
This digital document is an article from Cineaste, published by Thomson Gale on December 22, 2005. The length of the article is 1880 words. The page length shown above is based on a typical 300-word page. The article is delivered in HTML format and is available in your Amazon.com Digital Locker immediately after purchase. You can view it with any web browser.
Citation Details
Title: Nelson Pereira dos Santos.(A Companion to Latin American Film)(Book review)
Author: Dennis West
Publication:
Cineaste (Magazine/Journal)
Date: December 22, 2005
Publisher: Thomson Gale
Volume: 31
Issue: 1
Page: 77(3)
Article Type: Book review
Distributed by Thomson Gale
Customer Reviews:
Winning isn't everything..........2007-05-06
Although this book is a little outdated, the authors make a convincing case as to the spiraling salaries of Fortune 500 CEO's, sought-after-free-agent-superstar-athletes, box-office movie stars and the like. Winning begets winning, that's the gold standard of life. "In order for top CEO's to capture their full economic value, a second factor must also be present-namely, there must be open competition for their services." For what high level profession doesn't this rule apply? Pursuit of success is intrinsically woven into the tapestry of this nation and history has always been faithful to the winner; thus, the past is a recording of HIS STORY! It's unfortunate that vanity prevents so many people from accurately assessing their talents, but I don't thinks it calls for the reshaping of national policy as the authors suggest.
Brilliant book.......2007-01-09
Brilliant book, though the practical outlines of reversing the trends that drive our society towards a winner-takes-all-society may not be easy, or simply feasible. The argumentation is very solid and based on different literature, which makes the bibliography equally interesting. Though the numbers are outdated, one can only see that in current society the numbers for the winners have only - and extremely - augmented. Which proves the book was right but the ideas haven't made the political agenda.
A thought-provoking book that goes steadily downhill.......2006-09-25
The first half to 2/3 of this book makes some very good points that have escaped most of the popular discussions of economic issues. The authors point out, persuasively in my opinion, that certain industries and professions have "winner-take-all" characteristics that pervert the usual reward/punishment consequences of free-market economic policies.
The markets for which the authors have the strongest evidence of "winner take all" characteristics are presented earliest. As the book goes on, however, it falls into the same pattern of thousands of books before it: the authors have made one important and interesting observation, and they proceed to claim that virtually everything in the world that they disapprove of can be accounted for by this one observation. They assume, without plausible evidence, that the declines in education and popular culture are the direct consequence of winner-take-all markets. In a couple of cases they even admit that the evidence for winner-take-all characteristics in a particular industry or occupation is scanty or even nonexistent. But that doesn't prevent them from offering further arguments and policy recommendations based on the assumption that every one of these markets is dominated by winner-take-all distortions.
By the end of this book, where the authors make policy recommendations, they come close to leaving reality behind. They make these recommendations based on the assumptions that the **entire economy** is dominated by winner-take-all characteristics - a proposition for which they offer no evidence whatever. It is hard to escape the impression that their goal in writing this book was to justify a more socialistic economic policy on the part of the government, rather than to evenhandedly examine and explain an important issue.
In short: read the first of half of this book, because it makes a lot of worthwhile points and observations. Read most of the rest if you're retired or have a lot of free time. Skip the last chapter, with their policy recommendations.
Interesting Book by 2 Top Notch Economists.......2006-08-12
This book basically says that the rat race is harmful and we should constrain spending, because happiness isn't really what we have, but what our neighbor has; therefore, by creating incentives to spend less, we can create a trickle-down effect of less consumption and have more time and less coarseness in culture. The only problem is that the authors--as bright as they are--do not spend much time explaining exactly how a consumption tax would work. One gets the feeling that they felt going into specific details was inappropriate for a mass-market book. Along the way, we also learn about fun variations on game theory, the predecessor to Paris Hilton, and some prescient warnings on steroids. Despite the negative comments about lawyers in the book, I enjoyed it very much. The author reminds his readers, through facts and research, to be more humble and to remember that because the number of top positions is few in the U.S., it cannot be the case that all our dreams will be realized. While depressing on the surface, one may wish the participants on American Idol had read this book before appearing on national television.
An Explanation for the Growing Economic Inequality.......2002-10-02
The basic premise of this book is that the U.S. has too many markets where the "star" or top performer gets a large percentage of the proceeds. Examples are the sports market, the movie star market and the publishing market; The reasons given are;
-Technology. National distribution channels such as network television make it easier for an individual to penetrate the market. For example, at one time villages and towns had their own musicians. Now a singer can make a CD and sell it nationally.
-Falling transportation and tariff costs. Goods have gotten lighter. It is easier to send computer discs all over the world than books. CD's are lighter than phonograph records
-- Mental shelf space constraints. We have a limit to the number of items we can keep in our head..."the amount of information we can actually use is thus a declining fraction of the total information available."
-Weakening of regulations and civil society. At one time, informal and formal rules limited the winner take all markets. Now, like free agents in baseball, the top performers have the leverage to demand high prices.
-Self-reinforcing processes. This is another way of saying "success begets success." For example, a sales person does well and gets bigger customers. A person does well and the word of mouth referral causes them to saturate the market. This virtuous cycle increases the income and power of top performers.
The author argues that winner take all markets are not good for society. People are unrealistically optimistic about their own chances of winning "a prize." Thus they are siphoned off from other productive endeavors.
This book was helpful to me in understanding today's economy and job market. If anything, the winners are doing better than ever today, long after the book was published. Just take a look at the latest article on CEO salaries.
Average customer rating:
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Memory Verse Games for Kids (Take Me Through the Bible Series)
Steve Miller
Manufacturer: Harvest House Publishers
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
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ASIN: 1565076214 |
Book Description
This resource is bursting with 50 teaching methods that are proven to work with kids, that make Bible memory fun, creative, and effective! Paper.
Customer Reviews:
Helpful.......2006-08-03
I thought this book was helpful for what I needed, but didn't get much use out of most of the games. I was searching for games for VBS & most of the games were geared toward on going learning. If you are a Sunday School teacher looking for ideas, this book could be extremely useful.
Book Description
In helping establish a new field of study in the organizational sciences, POS, this book examines a variety of positive dynamics in businesses and organizations that give rise to extraordinary outcomes. Positive Organizational Scholarship does not adopt one particular theory or framework, but encompasses any phenomenon that leads to positive, nurturing results. This collection of essays, written by established senior scholars, explains why and how these commonsense prescriptions work.
Customer Reviews:
The idea of positive deviance might seem odd at first, but becomes quite powerful as you understand it.......2006-08-14
Happiness is something different than the absence of misery and health is something more than the absence of disease and debilitation. These statements are so obvious as to seem trivial. However, they are still true. If you have been fortunate to be part of an organization that was in one of those wonderful upward spirals that also involved a phenomenal team that was unified and happy, well, you know that working in such a positive environment is wonderfully different than working in an organization going through downward spiral with a demoralized team. What can be most interesting is that when the phenomenal team that experienced the upward cycle runs into a rough patch, they seem to stick together and avoid letting the rough patch develop into a crushing storm.
This terrific book is not one of those soft and gooey books calling for people to just get along or offering what amount to incantations in order to get people to somehow coalesce into the team they aren't. Instead, it posits the notion that when an organization is in a state of a certain kind of success it is as much an exception as a business that is falling towards extinction. It asks that if there are death spirals there might also be positive spirals. Yet the bulk of business study is on the mistakes and failures of organizations and on avoiding mistakes. While it is important to avoid making mistakes that can kill your organization, does it seem likely that one can learn success only by avoiding failure? Of course not.
This book and the papers it contains are laying a foundation for scholarly study of the positive deviance of successful organizations in order to develop principles for organizations to implement to achieve success in all aspects of its organizational being. It really isn't just about the money. Although the organization has to have financial success to exist, it is also about the people who make up the organization. One of the core principles of this book is that an organization that is concerned about virtuousness is going to be more successful and more resilient than one that ignores these principles.
There are 23 fine papers in here and I am sure that some will resonate with you more than others. However, I encourage you to read it. I believe you can begin to view your organization and your participation in it differently. You can begin to see what Professors Cameron, Quinn, Dutton and others are pointing us towards. And after you get past the wrong notion that they are talking about something too squishy to be real business, you begin to relate the questions they are asking to the times in your life when you were in that state of positive deviance. You will be able to relate the principles of virtue to what went well and things will seem more clear about why things go right.
While the book is really laying out possible areas of study for other scholars of organizational behavior to pursue, it also is quite useful for businesspeople and other organizational participants to read and think through the ideas of positive deviance. And while the upward spirals did have components of financial success, that alone will not last. It won't last without the people and people cannot perform well over extended periods of time without trust, gratitude, and more of the virtues that allow people to bond and put forward exceptional performance. The goal of this area of study is to develop theories and measures that will allow organizations to understand how these kinds of principles are part of their core ability to succeed.
The notes for the various chapters also provide sources for further reading and study.
Recommended.
Positive Organizational Scholarship.......2005-08-03
This is definitely a scholarly book. It's a difficult read for the lay audience, but if you are willing to "weave your way through an academic writing style," the information is excellent.
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Books Index
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Infectious Greed: How Deceit and Risk Corrupted the Financial Markets
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