Den of Thieves

Fülszöveg

It was boom time in the big city-a time of champagne and limos, big deals and big scores on the trading floor. It was the eighties, Wall Street's era of greed and glory. Everything was looking up. But, gradually, whispers began throughout the kingdom. As the stakes in the mergers and acquisitions game shot up and up and up, word spread that something strange was going on. Dirty moves were tainting the action, dirty moves among the very biggest players: Miiken, Boesky, and Martin Siegel, the newest star on the Street. At the height of the action, no one could have begun to understand the magnitude of what was happening. No one could have known the danger to American investors and the entire securities system. Even in their wildest dreams, few could have imagined that the greatest criminal conspiracy in financial history was unfolding behind the scenes. In Den ofThieves, Pulitzer Prize winner James B. Stewart of The Wall Street Journal finally telis all the secrets. Here, in... Tovább

Fülszöveg

It was boom time in the big city-a time of champagne and limos, big deals and big scores on the trading floor. It was the eighties, Wall Street's era of greed and glory. Everything was looking up. But, gradually, whispers began throughout the kingdom. As the stakes in the mergers and acquisitions game shot up and up and up, word spread that something strange was going on. Dirty moves were tainting the action, dirty moves among the very biggest players: Miiken, Boesky, and Martin Siegel, the newest star on the Street. At the height of the action, no one could have begun to understand the magnitude of what was happening. No one could have known the danger to American investors and the entire securities system. Even in their wildest dreams, few could have imagined that the greatest criminal conspiracy in financial history was unfolding behind the scenes. In Den ofThieves, Pulitzer Prize winner James B. Stewart of The Wall Street Journal finally telis all the secrets. Here, in masterfully reported detail, is the full story of the insider trading scandal that nearly destroyed Wall Street, the men who pulled it off, and the chase that finally brought them to justice. Stewart spins a tale of crime, punishment and the quest for power. He shows, for the first time, just how Michael Miiken, Ivan Boesky, Martin Siegel, and Dennis Levine created a series of security scams that made other financial hustles look like amateur night. He brings us the full narrative of events that have never been fully explained or dramatized, from the day that "small fish" Dennis Levine ($12.6 millión in illegal profits) forged the first link in his insider trading circle to the moment when Junk Bond King Michael Miiken (who earned $550 millión in a single year) finally feli-despite his retinue of loyal supporters and PR wizards. Against the backdrop of the biggest deals in financial history (Beatrice, Unocal, General Foods), Stewart shows us the thieves' ingenious moves; the rise and fali of Drexel; the Predators' Balls and more. From the hushed corridors of Ivan Boesky's palatial estate to the suites of the Beverly Hills Hotel, from the executive offices of warring brokerage houses to the courtrooms, Stewart takes us into the intersecting lives of the four men whose celebrity would be
(continued from front flap) eclipsed only by their felonies. He shows how handsome Marty Siegel, the good guy who couldn't qiiite make it on $1 millión a year, succumbed to temptation and the promises of Ivan Boesky, the arbitrage master who arrived at parties in helicopters and drew his "friends" further and further into the secret world of inside trades. We see how Boesky himself was gradually transformed into the pawn of Michael Miiken, the financial genius who turnéd junk bonds to gold. And we see how Dennis Levine, a man of limited talent and unlimited ambition, brought them all together for a brief moment that America may never forget. Den of Thieves alsó brings us the story of how a team of downtrodden detectives brought down this amazing quartet. Stewart shows how the agents, pretending to be blackmailers, threatened Siegel with ominous calls; how Boesky was lured into service as a double agent; how the country's most expensive, aggressive lawyers maneuvered frantically on behalf of their powerful clients; and finally how all the billions stopped flowing. James Stewart has woven all the facts, taken from secret grand jury transcripts, interviews, and actual trading records, into an unforgettable narrative, a portrait of humán natúréiig business, and crime of unparalleled proportions. Vissza