The Predators' Ball: The Inside Story of Drexel Burnham and the Rise of the Junk Bond Raiders | 
 enlarge | Author: Connie Bruck
Publisher: Penguin (Non-Classics)
Category: Book
List Price: $16.00
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Rating:  42 reviews
Sales Rank: 37270
Media: Paperback
Edition: Updated
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 400
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.6
Dimensions (in): 7.8 x 5.1 x 0.7
ISBN: 0140120904
Dewey Decimal Number: 332.6320973
EAN: 9780140120905
ASIN: 0140120904
Publication Date: June 1, 1989
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Condition: Standard used condition.
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Product Description
During the '80s, Michael Milken at Drexel Burnham created the corporate raiders. He was the billionaire Junk Bond King. But, in the corner stood the U.S. District Attorney waiting to file criminal and racketeering charges.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 37 more reviews...
 This is a very honest book about life and how ethnicity on WALL STREET matters! September 29, 2008
0 out of 1 found this review helpful
The Savings & Loan scheme was a creation of Michael Milken and his firm Drexel Burnham. They realized they could sell high risk securities to S&Ls while assuring the S&Ls (correctly) that being FDIC insured they could not lose.
The ultimate cost to the taxpayers (which is to say the Middle Class) was some $150 billion.
Charlie Keating as noted in the "Predator's Ball", when Keating tried, repeatedy, to contact Milken to be part of his group, Milken's secretary would just say: "You are not a Jew" and hang up on him.
This is a very honest book about life and how ethnicity on WALL STREET matters!
A expose of the Junk Fund King July 28, 2008
0 out of 1 found this review helpful
This author presents a thorough and conclusive account of Mike Milken. The level of depth she was able to provide here is really impressive.
The story of junk bonds in the 1980s February 22, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
Today the phrase "securities fraud" evokes Enron, WorldCom and Tyco. Two decades ago, it evoked Drexel Burnham Lambert, the investment bank that ruled the junk-bond realm and helped fund some of the most audacious corporate takeovers of the 1980s. Enthroned at the center of Drexel Burnham was the king of junk, Michael Milken. Was he a financial genius who found ever more clever ways to make markets more efficient? Or was he a swindler running the world's biggest Ponzi scheme? New Yorker writer Connie Bruck sets out to answer those questions in this cautionary tale of Drexel's rise and fall. getAbstract recommends this fascinating, highly detailed financial history. However, the flaw in Bruck's narrative is the absence of a third act: She inexplicably ends the book before Milken's trial and sentencing. While its ending is weak, this provocative story makes one thing clear: Uneasy lies the head that wears a leveraged crown.
It was just a party! A Very nice one! December 29, 2007
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
I Love this Book and the Brass ones it took to actually write it!
Magic Mike was brilliant! Not so legal, but a genius!
And "The Predator's Ball", was a just a Very expensive weekend party in a bungalow at The Hotel California!
Great story, too bad it will never be a movie!
A Piece That Has What Others Don't. September 1, 2007
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
Highly regarded as one of the finest pieces of business investigative journalism written, Connie Bruck's groundbreaking work on the subject of junk bonds and corporate financing was written during a time when the business press universally admired Drexel Burnham for their ability to turn junk into gold.
You will find this book quite entertaining and comprehensible. A smooth read not filled with too much industry jargon, its nomenclature friendly enough even for the beginner. It highlights the bright sides as well as the dark sides of the critically acclaimed Junk-bond king Michael Milken and allows each of us to have his or her own view on Milken and Drexel Burnham's underlying philosophy.
Although the book does lean heavily towards Milken having a me first attitude, it does manage to pin down a few important business lessons underscored by him that cannot be overlooked. You will not waste any time reading this piece. You will definitely be on the winning side by reading this book.
This book will definitely generate scores of topics to discuss and debate about the philosophies of American business that dominated Wall Street in the 1980s. This future classic highlights many corporate raiders that are still vehemently visible today. Just to name a few: players like Carl Icahn, Nelson Peltz, Ron Perelman, T. Boone Pickens and a host of others.
A definite must read for those interested in banking, financial history, and especially for business students.
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