The Titans of Takeover

Book excerpt: The story told in The Titans of Takeover is that of the corporate raiders - the men who in the 1980s discovered great financial opportunities in seizing control of someone else's business, often at bargain prices. With millions of dollars at stake, these raiders aroused massive public attention and, depending on point of view, were for a while either the villains or the saviors of American business. The book looks not only at the raiders, but also at other featured players in the takeover game: the investment bankers, attorneys, and arbitragers. Profiled in these pages are the leading figures in the American takeover field, including T. Boone Pickens, Carl Icahn, Saul Steinberg, and Ted Turner as well as such behind-the-scenes personalities as lawyers Martin Lipton and Joseph Flom, investment bankers Joseph Perella and Bruce Wasserstein, and arbitrager Ivan Boesky. Book jacket.