cover image Masters of the Universe: Winning Strategies of America's Greatest Deal Makers

Masters of the Universe: Winning Strategies of America's Greatest Deal Makers

Daniel J. Kadlec. HarperCollins Publishers, $26 (282pp) ISBN 978-0-88730-933-5

Though there are very few surprises in this book, Time columnist Kadlec does an excellent job of putting deals into context. Among the business giants profiled are Ted Forstmann (who purchased Gulfstream), Carl Icahn (about whom Kadlec writes: ""no deal--indeed no detail down to a quote in the newspaper--is too small to negotiate) and Hugh McColl (who built NationsBank). At the end of each profile, Kadlec tacks on a Q&A session taken from his interviews. And so readers will be amused to learn that McColl used to fire pipe smokers because ""I figured anyone who had enough time to mess with pipes had too slow a metabolism for me."" Less interesting is the fact that Sandy Weill of Citigroup Corp. thinks that satisfying the ""needs and feelings"" of everyone who takes part in a deal is the hardest thing of all. With concise profiles and a journalist's eye for revealing character traits, Kadlec sheds light on these giants of the conference room. Missing from the book, however, are representatives from foreign companies (a rather serious omission given globalization and such recent developments as Bertelsmann's purchase of Random House and the advent of DaimlerChrysler). And Kadlec virtually ignores high-tech companies, a field where mergers, acquisitions and alliances seem to revamp the industry daily. (May)