A Giant Cow-Tipping by Savages: The Boom, Bust, and Boom Culture of M&A

The mergers and acquisitions industry may seem like it’s always been a part of the financial world, but as journalist Weir Close, founder and editor of the M&A Journal, shows, the history of M&A only begins in the mid-1970s. This detailed and lively chronicle looks at the world of M&A, the people who created it, and the next M&A boom. The story begins with Joe Flom and Marty Lipton, two rivals who took advantage of newly instituted government regulations and turned the buying and selling of companies into a profession of its own. Weir Close then takes the reader into the wild excesses of the years that followed, from workplace lunch-hour lap dances to coffee carts stocked with beverages, donuts, and cocaine, and 400-hour work months. In addition to Flom and Lipton, readers meet a host of influencers, including Merrill Lynch’s Jeffrey Chandor and Drexel’s Michael Milken, as well as famed eccentric Jimmy Goldsmith, who was known for his rubber band phobia. The narrative travels from Hollywood and the battle between John Kluge and Sumner Redstone over Orion, to publishing house Macmillan, to industries too numerous to count. Exhaustive and well written, Weir Close’s account offers an insightful look forward and perceptive look back at the world of M&A. Agent: Larry Weissman, Larry Weissman Literary. (Oct.)