Big Deal

April 15, 1998
Wasserstein heads a mergers and acquisitions (M & A) advisory business. In profiling the firm, the "Wall Street Journal" called it synonymous with the practice of "hostile takeover" because of its role in the merger mania of the 1980s. Wasserstein played a key part in the fall of RJR Nabisco and presumably was one of the "barbarians" in Bryan Burrough and John Helyar's "Barbarians at the Gate" (1990). With the subsequent decline in merger activity, Wasserstein faded from attention. But with recent megadeals like those between WorldCom and MCI and between Compaq and Digital Equipment, mergers are back, and Wasserstein's company has resurfaced in the glare of publicity. Coincidentally, he has come out with this blockbuster history of M & A. Given that he was a participant in so many rancorous past events, Wasserstein's account is compelling. He also explains the role of M & A in changing the way business is done and the way it is run, and he pinpoints and analyzes the five "elemental forces," or "pistons," that "drive the merger process." ((Reviewed April 15, 1998))(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 1998, American Library Association.)