“Listen, Ross, they have their reasons for doing this other than just buying the company,” he explained. He mentioned the $200 million in upfront fees Shearson would reap from a successful deal. He talked about the unmatched franchise benefits it would reap from having completed history’s largest LBO. Johnson’s problem was that he insisted on thinking in terms of the real world, real money, real investments. In effect, Goldstone said, this wasn’t the real world. This was Wall Street.
