Books about Leveraged from Amazon.com

Barbarians at the Gate has been called one of the most influential business books of all time -- the definitive account of the largest takeover in Wall Street history Bryan Burrough and John Helyar's gripping account of the frenzy that overtook Wall Street in October and November of 1988 is the story of deal makers and publicity flaks, of strategy meetings and society dinners, of boardrooms and bedrooms -- giving us not only a detailed look at how financial operations at the highest levels are conducted but also a richly textured social history of wealth at the twilight of the Reagan era.

Barbarians at the Gate -- a business narrative classic -- is must reading for everyone interested in the way today's world really works.

.
Price: $7.93 [Notify me when price goes down.]

Ask any banker under 30 (and quite a few on the other side) to name the source of the quote above, and the recognition would be instantaneous: Leveraged Sell-Out! This popular blog, which receives 200,000 page-views a month, has set The Street abuzz with its no-holds-barred, decidedly un-PC skewering of the habits, rituals, and lifestyles of the young and overpaid.

Covering everything from the basics of the industry (top: private equity/hedge funds; bottom: consultants) to the institutions themselves ("Fundsunder $500 million are little more than glorified piggy banks") and even bankers' music ("John Mayer is the greatest guitarist EVER"), Damn, It FeelsGood to Be a Banker is required reading for an entire generation of bankers as well as their beleaguered friends and family members who seek to understand the madness.

.
Price: $11.16 [Notify me when price goes down.]

A widespread misunderstanding concerning leveraged buyouts (LBOs) is the belief that they accomplish little but the ruin of companies and the loss of employment How else could it be? Until recently, journalists, including much of the business press, have depicted LBO specialists as generally greedy, if not sinister, forces whose activities compound the dislocations of modern American economic and social life. This kind of criticism reached a crescendo in the press and in Congress at the end of the 1980s, and Kohlberg Kravis Roberts found itself in the middle of the controversy. Based on interviews with partners of the firm and on unprecedented access to KKR's records, George P. Baker and George David Smith have written a definitive account of how KKR has approached LBOs in a book that will appeal to the specialist and general reader alike. The authors focus on KKR's founding, evolution, and innovations as ways to understand issues in modern American business. In examining KKR as a unique form of enterprise--one that subscribes to a set of alternative perspectives on business and value creation--the book bridges the gap between public perception and academic knowledge of how financial innovation impacts economic life. The firm's approach to leveraged buyouts was an important aspect of the corporate restructuring and governance reforms in the American economy from the mid-1970s through 1990 (the years of what some have called the "leveraged buyout movement"). KKR and other companies fundamentally altered the prevailing perception of the role of debt in the modern American corporation and established an alternative model for organizing and managing corporate enterprises. KKR financed the companies it acquired with high levels of debt, while linking their ownership to management. It then imposed rigorous monitoring by the board of directors over the companies in its portfolio. This combination of factors forced managers to concentrate not on growth but rather on how to achieve value through whatever means was most appropriate to the company's circumstances. The purpose of the leveraged buyout was to realize, or "create," value in companies by reforming their management systems. KKR's approach to restructuring the relationship between owners and managers in a highly leveraged firm rested on a basic principle: Make managers owners by making them invest a significant share of their personal wealth in the enterprises they manage, and they will have stronger incentives to act in the best interests of all shareholders..
Price: $17.95 [Notify me when price goes down.]

"What kinds of investors actually choose to make their living by seeking out troubled companies and becoming mired in the complexities and contentiousness of a bankruptcy or out-of-court workout?" - Hilary Rosenberg (from The Vulture Investors)

Welcome to the big-time, big-stress-and big-profit-world of vulture investing. From the eleventh-hour save of Donald Trump's casinos, to the tempestuous history of Wheeling-Pittsburgh Steel, to the rocky restructuring of the massive Revco discount drugstore chain, Hilary Rosenberg takes us on a fast-moving journey through some of the major bankruptcies of the 1980s and 1990s-and brings to life the infamous, talented arbiters at the heart of their recovery. Meet the so-called "vulture investors" who cast their sights on distressed concerns, buy out debt, and skillfully forge their way to rich returns. Quietly upstaging the flashier corporate tycoons and raiders of the previous decade, men like Leon Black, Ronald LaBow, Sam Zell, Talton Embry, and Martin Whitman have helped to make a more efficient market in this obscure sector of investment, and their success may even inspire the quickly evolving business cultures of Asia and Latin America.

The vulture investors made their way to the forefront of American business during the troubled period when declaring bankruptcy became commonplace among debt-heavy companies. Buying out debt and seeing through the rehabilitation of companies as well-known as Sunbeam and Bloomingdale's, these unique players have changed the face of the distressed securities market. In her own animated, absorbing, and original style, Hilary Rosenberg creates thoroughly researched reenactments of the vultures' greatest exploits to offer an intriguing examination of their methods and their madness-and reveals the important role of these controversial characters in aiding worldwide economic recovery.

Praise for The Vulture Investors

"A lively account of the hardy band of investors who look for-and find-gold in capitalism's junk pile. Rosenberg not only tells their stories with captivating relish but weighs the overall economic impact of their exploits. This book is a valuable introduction to 1990s-style deal-making." - Chris Welles, Senior Editor, Business Week

"In a tour de force of punchy business writing, Rosenberg dissects a little-known but increasingly common high-stakes financial game: preying on companies in distress. . . . The author relates these intricate, suspenseful narratives in a clear, lively style that always instructs and often amuses." - Publishers Weekly

"Reads like a good suspense novel." - Library Journal.
Price: $32.97 [Notify me when price goes down.]

In When Hollywood Had a King, the distinguished journalist Connie Bruck tells the sweeping story of MCA and its brilliant leader, a man who transformed the entertainment industry— businessman, politician, tactician, and visionary Lew Wasserman.


The Music Corporation of America was founded in Chicago in 1924 by Dr. Jules Stein, an ophthalmologist with a gift for booking bands. Twelve years later, Stein moved his operations west to Beverly Hills and hired Lew Wasserman. From his meager beginnings as a movie-theater usher in Cleveland, Wasserman ultimately ascended to the post of president of MCA, and the company became the most powerful force in Hollywood, regarded with a mixture of fear and awe.

In his signature black suit and black knit tie, Was-serman took Hollywood by storm. He shifted the balance of power from the studios—which had seven-year contractual strangleholds on the stars—to the talent, who became profit partners. When an antitrust suit forced MCA’s evolution from talent agency to film- and television-production company, it was Wasserman who parlayed the control of a wide variety of entertainment and media products into a new type of Hollywood power base. There was only Washington left to conquer, and conquer it Wasserman did, quietly brokering alliances with Democratic and Republican administrations alike.

That Wasserman’s reach extended from the underworld to the White House only added to his mystique. Among his friends were Teamster boss Jimmy Hoffa, mob lawyer Sidney Korshak, and gangster Moe Dalitz—along with Presidents Johnson, Clinton, and especially Reagan, who enjoyed a particularly close and mutually beneficial relationship with Wasserman. He was equally intimate with Hollywood royalty, from Bette Davis and Jimmy Stewart to Steven Spielberg, who began his career at MCA and once described Wasserman’s eyeglasses as looking like two giant movie screens.

The history of MCA is really the history of a revolution. Lew Wasserman ushered in the Hollywood we know today. He is the link between the old-school moguls with their ironclad studio contracts and the new industry defined by multimedia conglomerates, power agents, multimillionaire actors, and profit sharing. In the hands of Connie Bruck, the story of Lew Wasserman’s rise to power takes on an almost Shakespearean scope. When Hollywood Had a King reveals the industry’s greatest untold story: how a stealthy, enterprising power broker became, for a time, Tinseltown’s absolute monarch.


From the Hardcover edition..
Price: $10.10 [Notify me when price goes down.]

Insider guidance to the modern world of investment banking today

In Investment Banking Explained, Wharton professor and global financier Michel Fleuriet provides a complete overview of investment banking in its modern form; defines key terms; identifies structures, strategies, and operational aspects; and analyzes the strategy in each of the main functional areas of an investment bank..
Price: $32.96 [Notify me when price goes down.]

An ESOP (employee stock ownership plan) is a tax-qualified benefit plan that is designed to invest primarily in company stock. Among other things, an ESOP can be used to purchase shares from retiring owners in closely held companies; buy out divisions, product lines, or entire companies; finance new capital; and provide a tax-advantaged employee benefit. There are over 11,000 U.S. companies with ESOPs, covering well over 8 million employees.

Many ESOPs are leveraged, meaning that the plan borrows money on the employer company's credit to buy company stock. It is the only qualified employee benefit plan that can do this. Moreover, the company can deduct ESOP contributions it makes for both principal and interest payments for the loan, and owners of closely held C corporations who sell to an ESOP can avoid paying capital gains tax on the sale proceeds by reinvesting them in qualifying U.S. securities.

Written by leading experts, this book is a practical tool for business owners, managers, and advisors dealing with both public and private companies. It covers contribution limits, valuation issues, financing, accounting, the tax-deferred "rollover," employee buyout feasibility, mergers and acquisitions, and other relevant topics. The book is designed to be used by both public and private companies as well as their professional advisors. (Note: This book is about the U.S. ESOP, not plans called "ESOPs" in other countries.)

The fifth edition has been revised to reflect the latest developments in ESOP law and practice..
Price: $35.00 [Notify me when price goes down.]

A complete how-to guide to a 100 0.000000inanced business… How to Buy a Great Business with no Cash Down Bestselling author Dr. Arnold Goldstein has successfully purchased 12 companies—including retail stores to printing plants—and he did it without investing any money of his own! Using his proven formula for success, he also has guided hundreds of other enterprising but financially limited people into their own 100 0.000000e+00veraged businesses. Now, the master of the "No Cash Down" takeover is ready to help you too. In this important new book, he reveals all his secrets, including how to successfully find, qualify, evaluate, structure, finance, negotiate, and take over any type or size business…using little or no cash of your own. In How to Buy a Great Business With No Cash Down, you'll

• Get over 50 proven "no cash down" techniques, strategies, and formulas that insure success through each phase of the buy-sell process
• Discover how to prospect the very best no-cash deals
• Learn how to avoid costly errors and common pitfalls
• Find out how to calculate what a business is worth
• Get all the same handy checklists, forms, and sample agreements the author uses
• Learn how to attract the right investment partners
• Discover how to negotiate a winning deal…each and every time!
• Find out how to quickly sell the business for an unbelievable profit

.
Price: $16.00 [Notify me when price goes down.]