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The White Sharks of Wall Street: Thomas Mellon Evans and the Original Corporate Raiders
The first in-depth portrait of the life and times of the trailblazing financier Thomas Mellon Evans -- the man who pursued wealth and power in the 1950s with a brash ruthlessness that forever changed the face of corporate America.
Long before Michael Milken was using junk bonds to finance corporate takeovers, Thomas Mellon Evans used debt, cash, and the tax code to obtain control of more than eighty American companies. Long before investors began to lobby for "shareholder's rights," Evans was demanding that public companies be run only for their shareholders -- not for their employees, their executives, or their surrounding communities. To some, Evans's merciless style presaged much that is wrong with corporate life today. To others, he intuitively knew what was needed to keep America competitive in the wake of a global war.
In 'The White Sharks of Wall Street,' New York Times investigative reporter Diana Henriques provides the first biography of this pivotal figure in American business history. She also portrays the other pioneering corporate raiders of the postwar period, such as Robert Young and Louis Wolfson, and shows how these men learned from one another and advanced one another's takeover tactics. She relates in dramatic detail a number of important early takeover fights -- Wolfson's challenge to Montgomery Ward, Young's move on the New York Central Railroad, the fight for Follansbee Steel -- and shows how they foreshadowed the desperate battle waged by Tom Evans's son, Ned Evans, to keep the British raider Robert Maxwell away from his Macmillan publishing empire during the 1980s.
Henriques also reaches beyond the business arena to tally the tragic personal cost of Evans's pursuit of success and to show how the family dynasty shattered when his sons were driven by his own stubbornness and pride to become his rivals. In the end, the battling patriarch faced his youngest son in a poignant battle for control at the Crane Company, the once-famous Chicago plumbing and valve company that Tom Evans had himself seized in a brilliant takeover coup twenty-five years earlier.
'The White Sharks of Wall Street' is a fascinating portrait of an extraordinary man, whose career blazed across the sky and then sank into obscurity -- but not before he had provided the template for how American business would operate for the next four decades.
Long before Michael Milken was using junk bonds to finance corporate takeovers, Thomas Mellon Evans used debt, cash, and the tax code to obtain control of more than eighty American companies. Long before investors began to lobby for "shareholder's rights," Evans was demanding that public companies be run only for their shareholders -- not for their employees, their executives, or their surrounding communities. To some, Evans's merciless style presaged much that is wrong with corporate life today. To others, he intuitively knew what was needed to keep America competitive in the wake of a global war.
In 'The White Sharks of Wall Street,' New York Times investigative reporter Diana Henriques provides the first biography of this pivotal figure in American business history. She also portrays the other pioneering corporate raiders of the postwar period, such as Robert Young and Louis Wolfson, and shows how these men learned from one another and advanced one another's takeover tactics. She relates in dramatic detail a number of important early takeover fights -- Wolfson's challenge to Montgomery Ward, Young's move on the New York Central Railroad, the fight for Follansbee Steel -- and shows how they foreshadowed the desperate battle waged by Tom Evans's son, Ned Evans, to keep the British raider Robert Maxwell away from his Macmillan publishing empire during the 1980s.
Henriques also reaches beyond the business arena to tally the tragic personal cost of Evans's pursuit of success and to show how the family dynasty shattered when his sons were driven by his own stubbornness and pride to become his rivals. In the end, the battling patriarch faced his youngest son in a poignant battle for control at the Crane Company, the once-famous Chicago plumbing and valve company that Tom Evans had himself seized in a brilliant takeover coup twenty-five years earlier.
'The White Sharks of Wall Street' is a fascinating portrait of an extraordinary man, whose career blazed across the sky and then sank into obscurity -- but not before he had provided the template for how American business would operate for the next four decades.
368 pages, Hardcover
First published May 15, 2000
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About the author
Diana B. Henriques
9 books75 followersDiana B. Henriques is the author of 'The White Sharks of Wall Street' and 'Fidelity's World.' She is a senior financial writer for The New York Times, having joined the Times staff in 1989.
A Polk Award winner and Pulitzer Prize finalist, Henriques has won several awards for her work on the Times' coverage of the Madoff scandal and was part of the team recognized as a Pulitzer finalist for its coverage of the financial crisis of 2008. She lives in Hoboken, New Jersey.
A Polk Award winner and Pulitzer Prize finalist, Henriques has won several awards for her work on the Times' coverage of the Madoff scandal and was part of the team recognized as a Pulitzer finalist for its coverage of the financial crisis of 2008. She lives in Hoboken, New Jersey.
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
September 4, 2013
So when did the corporate raiding start on Wall Street and who were the original "sharks"? This book reveals the people that started the game in the 1950's and 1960's that would ultimately bring the financial system to its knees 50 years later.
She introduces Thomas Mellon Evans and a little known cast of financial pirates, unrestrained by regulation and in fact they caused regulations to be written into law.
If you like to follow the byzantine labyrinth of financial transactions, this book beside a fireplace is ideal. I found the narrative absorbing, and transports the reader to the 1950's as raiders buy, dismember, and relaunch companies with abandon.
Quite a well-researched effort with lots of detail.
She introduces Thomas Mellon Evans and a little known cast of financial pirates, unrestrained by regulation and in fact they caused regulations to be written into law.
If you like to follow the byzantine labyrinth of financial transactions, this book beside a fireplace is ideal. I found the narrative absorbing, and transports the reader to the 1950's as raiders buy, dismember, and relaunch companies with abandon.
Quite a well-researched effort with lots of detail.
May 12, 2011
Start is good looking at TM Evans life but the story includes many other raiders and becomes one proxy fight after another. DNF.
February 7, 2017
Great book! The 1980s period of raiders and corporate takeovers was nothing new. It all happened before in the 1950s and 1960s. The book shows that history does not repeat itself but rymthes.
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews