The Last Tycoons by William D. Cohan
Not a day goes by without news of deals by investment banks, Hedge Funds and Private Equity companies in the financial press. Deals in the branch are becoming ever more complicated, and are getting more and more gigantic. Outsiders can only understand the rough outlines, if that. For this reason, I noticed a book recommendation for "The Last Tycoons" by William D. Cohan, about the long-established investment bank Lazard. William Cohan's book "The Last Tycoons" is subtitled “A tale of unrestrained ambition, billion-dollar fortunes, Byzantine power struggles, and hidden scandal”. The subtitle sounds promising, and I will buy this book to read on my next travels.
The film “Wall Street” with Michael Douglas as Gordon Gekko, Daryl Hannah, Charlie Sheen and Martin Sheen is a cult movie for me, about the finance fraternity in New York. Even though the film is 20 years old, the problems it deal with appear again and again. The American SEC was given more powers for good reason, after the Worldcom and Enron scandals – at least that is how it is presented in the press :-) Recent reports of falsely dated stock options make me wonder. The Oscar-winning director Martin Scorsese is also planning a film about the world of finance, and its depths.
My favourite claim by commentators and so-called experts when there are rising stock prices in a bull market is: “This time everything is different!”
