The Last Tycoons: The Secret History of Lazard Frères & Co.
by William D. Cohan
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Book Summary Information
Author: William D. CohanEdition: Paperback
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published)
Published: 2008-04-08
ISBN: 0767919793
Number of pages: 752
Publisher: Anchor
Book Reviews of The Last Tycoons: The Secret History of Lazard Frères & Co.
Book Review: A decent read but falls far short as economic history
Summary: 3 Stars
There is much that is interesting in this detailed story of Lazard, the enigmatic Wall Street M&A advisory firm. However despite the plaudits the book has received (e.g. FT business book of the year for 2007, beating our Alan Greenspan's autobiography), it falls far short of the great Wall Street histories in the tradition of Ron Chernow (on the Morgans) or Niall Ferguson (on the Rothschilds). Cohan is a decent storyteller, but in the end this long narrative fails to do a number of things:
1) Gain more insight into what Lazard bankers actually did. We hear repeatedly about Rohatyn's endless deals but never get a good sense of how he sold the business, what those deals entailed, and what his bankers actually did to earn their enormous fees. In particular I would have liked to learn more about how the nature of M&A advisory work has evolved over the past 50 years (Cohan talks about the 'spreadsheet revolution', but never goes into any detail).
2) Keep the international thread. He starts with a cross-Atlantic perspective with the story of founding of Lazard in France, but following Andre Meyer's move to NY during World War II, he drops the narrative of the British and French firms, only returning to them in passing towards the end of the book. It seems somewhat arbitrary to ignore those Lazards entirely.
3) Talk more about the industry. Cohan is clearly captivated by the big personalities like Meyer and Rohatyn, or scandals like ITT, but he fails to talk much about how the investment banking industry evolves in the post-war period and how other Wall Street firms grew alongside Lazard.
4) The Jewish angle. There are oblique references to Lazard's Jewish roots and identity, and occasionally to issues with anti-semitism that came up with employees and competitors, but Cohan never addresses head-on just what the firm's Jewish identity meant (if anything) and how it differentiated Lazard from the so-called blue-blooded firms.
5) Most importantly, make the case for why we should care. Why does Lazards justify a 750page history in the first place? Cohan seems to think there was something special or unusual about the firm but never really makes the argument for what made this any different from dozens of investment banks and hundreds of finance businesses.
In the end, although there are elements of criticism in the book, it reads too much like an authorized corporate history and lacks much real insight into the the history of American banking. Anyone interested in the latter might spend his or her time better elsewhere.
Summary of The Last Tycoons: The Secret History of Lazard Frères & Co.
A grand and revelatory portrait of Wall Street?s most storied investment bankWall 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.
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