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34th out of 45 books
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14 voters
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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...more
Hardcover, 752 pages
Published
April 3rd 2007
by Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group
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Compelling history of Lazard Frères & Co.
If investment banking and the history of big deals fascinate you, getAbstract invites you to sit down with this compelling history of Lazard Frères & Co., from its humble beginnings through its astounding success. The stories of the dominant personalities who used the Lazard mystique to garner unbelievable fees are legendary. As a former journalist and Lazard banker, William D. Cohan has the skill and qualifications to tell this story. While ...more
If investment banking and the history of big deals fascinate you, getAbstract invites you to sit down with this compelling history of Lazard Frères & Co., from its humble beginnings through its astounding success. The stories of the dominant personalities who used the Lazard mystique to garner unbelievable fees are legendary. As a former journalist and Lazard banker, William D. Cohan has the skill and qualifications to tell this story. While ...more
would benefit from some more rigorous editing and abbreviation, but insightful nonetheless... reminds me of why i would never want to work for an investment bank (did i just say that?)
I was not able to finish this book. The direction was not clear. It is not badly written, but the direction of where the book was going was not clear.
Interesting book on a company I didn't even know existed before I'd read their story. Well researched.
The author is a former banker and journalist, and he writes like the former. His stylistic quirks - he tends to complete rather nondescript thoughts with menaningless quotations from the players which add nothing - are annoying and amateurish. And while it is well researched and footnoted, the history of the once secretive Lazard Freres is not all that exciting. However, there is some juicy gossip, and the best portions center on the massive egos of the various stars in the firm. Those chapt...more
Poorly written, makes me want to fall asleep. Read Barbarians at the Gate instead.
Good retelling based on widely disseminated sources.
Philip
added it
Quite hard work but on the whole enjoyable
This was a tough one - there were parts of it that I really liked (the more recent history, their conversations about going public, etc.) particularly around their ridiculously insular culture, but there were also whole sections that dragged terribly. So I would say interesting to those who have seen a bank from the inside, could have gotten a bit tougher with the editing pen.
I can understand entirely why the average reader would not be very interested in this book but it is an incredibly well research and entertaining look at one of Wall Street's most impressive firms. While I found the end of the book that deals with the most recent developments within the firm to be a bit rambling I found the balance of the firm's history (and especially the historical perspective given to it) rather fascinating.
Alex Gunawan
is currently reading it
As expected, This book is really good. It tells us about Lazard Freres & co, it's intrigue, etc...... It is about history about the success and the end of the last private company, after surviving more than a hundred years.
I won't make a lot of comment because i haven't finished it. Hopefully, i have a lot of time to read it........
I won't make a lot of comment because i haven't finished it. Hopefully, i have a lot of time to read it........
This is a gossipy history of an investment bank, most of it dedicated to the last 20 years where the most gossip is available. It contains all of the joys and limitations of good gossip, although non-bankers may find the descriptions of the various compensation packages a little arcane.
Will written, but LONG and really only for the die hard lover of the history of wall street. On a positive note I thought it was fair and well researched and did not have an agenda, a big bonus considering it was written by a former Lazard partner.
I never thought the exciting life of investment bankers at Lazard could turn into such a boring book.
Amazing insight to one of most influential but unknown investment banks in history.
A little long, but a good sense of financial history of the United States.
This book probably has a pretty limited audience. That said, it's well done.
An interesting, but ultimately long-winded, look at Lazard Freres.
Interesting story of Lazard's history and people behind it.
Great insights into the secret world of Lazard
lib 3/19; need to reorder as of 4/20
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