ward - the devil's casino; friendship, betrayal, and the high-stakes games played inside lehman brothers (2010)

Table of Contents Title Page Copyright Page Dedication Epigraph Cast of Characters Key Players Lehman 1984 -1994, the Slamex Years Lehman 1994-2008: From Independence to Meltdown Key Lehman Spouses The Original Lehman Brothers Industry Players Barclays The Law Bankruptcy Administrators Government Players Prologue Part One - THE PONDEROSA BOYS Chapter 1 - A Long, Hot Summer Chapter 2 - The Beginning Chapter 3 - The Captain Chapter 4 - The "Take-Under" Chapter 5 - Slamex Chapter 6 - The Phoenix Rises Chapter 7 - Independence Day Chapter 8 - The Stiletto Chapter 9 - The Ides of March Chapter 10 - Eulogies Part Two - THE ECHO CHAMBER Chapter 11 - Russian Winter Chapter 12 - Lehman's Desperate Housewives Chapter 13 - The Young Lions Chapter 14 - 9/11 Chapter 15 - No Ordinary Joe Chapter 16 - The Talking Head Chapter 17 - The Sacrificial Ram Chapter 18 - Korea's Rising Sum Chapter 19 - The Wart on the End of Lehman's Nose Chapter 20 - Damned Flood? Chapter 21 - Closing the Books Epilogue A Note About the Sources Notes References Acknowledgements Index [...]... Derivatives at Lehman Brothers The five men who would forge the culture of the new Lehman Brothers, the postShearson Lehman, could not have been more -A- different from the polished Lehman partners of the 1970s They were street fighters, traders who had no time for the condescension of snobbish bankers who wore fancy suits but made less money than they did Lehman' s resurgence was led by Dick Fuld and four... 1850 by three cotton trader brothers Henry, Emmanuel, and Mayer Lehman The cotton business had evolved from trading and general merchandising into an exchange in lower Manhattan With the post - Civil War expansion of trading in stocks and bonds, the firm prospered and expanded The next great leap for Lehman Brothers occurred after World War II, under the reign of Bobbie Lehman, who had a Rolodex bursting... balloons in the Winter Garden, the party space in the World Financial Center, across the street from the World Trade Center towers in the heart of Wall Street Fuld proudly proclaimed: "It's a new day We have the opportunity to create our own destiny, and I need you to do it." There is talk among the senior executives about the "remarkable will of Lehman Brothers, " and the "nonnegotiable values of the Lehman. .. instilled at Lehman Brothers, handed out pencils with all the senior executives' names on them as party favors He was the man who once staked his career and his lifesavings to protect the jobs of the traders, back-office workers, and secretaries in his unit He was Lehman Brothers at its best Yet now he is all but forgotten, nearly erased from the public record by a culture of ruthless avarice Part One THE PONDEROSA... team of Lehman came to the party Longtime chairman and CEO Dick Fuld was there with his wife of nearly thirty years, Kathy, 56, then the vice chair of the Museum of Modern Art Sticking close to them were Joe Gregory, Lehman' s president, and his second wife, Niki, a beautiful Greek-born brunette Then there was the urbane, silver-haired Tom Russo, Lehman' s chief legal officer Famous for his charm and eloquence,... interview He was hired, and six months later so was his brother, Rusty The trio spent two years there, and more than tripled the productivity of the company; but they had a falling out with the owner, who they claimed cheated them on their compensation They swore that they "would never work for a jerk again," says Mary Anne They came home to Huntington in 1975 With help from Chris's father, they purchased Finnegan's... much all the senior investment bankers to get it sold This was precisely what happened, as detailed in a 1986 saga chronicled by Ken Auletta in Greed and Glory on Wall Street Glucksman was offered a $15.6 million noncompete buyout fee (on 4,500 shares) He and most of the other partners took the money and ran And Gregory and Fuld began their ascents into the ruling elite of the new Lehman Brothers The firm... all -time high that "they' ll be carrying me out of here feet first." And they almost did What I had failed to realize until I dug far deeper into the annals of Lehman' s history was that the drama of the ending was no match for the saga of its life The story of the 160 year-old firm up until 1984 had been well-chronicled (in particular, by Ken Auletta in Greed and Glory on Wall Street: The Fall of the. .. department, and provided enough momentum for Lehman Brothers to finally spin out once again, its egos intact As for Fuld and Gregory? It had taken immense grit, courage, and a warlike mentality to restore the burnish to the once golden brand They had defied the naysayers who believed that a tiny bond shop would never survive the Mexican peso crisis of 1994; and they did the same again through the Russian... Investing, and Risk, had met their wives at the office and had simply grabbed their jackets from the backs of their chairs before heading hurriedly, their minds elsewhere, out the door Even Walker hadn't been home much recently; on the day of the wedding party, Nancy Dorn had gone to a movie by herself The June earnings were due in two days As the new 41 -year-old CFO, Erin Callan, worked on them (she . Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data: Ward, Vicky. The devil's casino : friendship, betrayal, and the high-stakes games played inside Lehman Brothers / Vicky Ward. p. cm Fuld began their ascents into the ruling elite of the new Lehman Brothers. The firm was founded in 1850 by three cotton trader brothers Henry, Emmanuel, and Mayer Lehman. The cotton. 6 - The Phoenix Rises Chapter 7 - Independence Day Chapter 8 - The Stiletto Chapter 9 - The Ides of March Chapter 10 - Eulogies Part Two - THE ECHO CHAMBER Chapter 11 -