The Accidental Investment Banker

Author : Jonathan A. Knee
Publisher : Oxford University Press
ISBN 13 : 9780198042051
Total Pages : 288 pages
Book Rating : 4.51/5 ( download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!

Download or read book The Accidental Investment Banker written by Jonathan A. Knee and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2006-08-15 with total page 288 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Jonathan A. Knee had a ringside seat during the go-go, boom-and-bust decade and into the 21st century, at the two most prestigious investment banks on Wall Street--Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley. In this candid and irreverent insider's account of an industry in free fall, Knee captures an exhilarating era of fabulous deal-making in a free-wheeling Internet economy--and the catastrophe that followed when the bubble burst. Populated with power players, back stabbers, celebrity bankers, and godzillionaires, here is a vivid account of the dramatic upheaval that took place in investment banking. Indeed, Knee entered an industry that was typified by the motto "first-class business in a first-class way" and saw it transformed in a decade to a free-for-all typified by the acronym IBG, YBG ("I'll be gone, you'll be gone"). Increasingly mercenary bankers signed off on weak deals, knowing they would leave them in the rear-view mirror. Once, investment bankers prospered largely on their success in serving the client, preserving the firm, and protecting the public interest. Now, in the "financial supermarket" era, bankers felt not only that each day might be their last, but that their worth was tied exclusively to how much revenue they generated for the firm on that day--regardless of the source. Today, most young executives feel no loyalty to their firms, and among their clients, Knee finds an unprecedented but understandable level of cynicism and distrust of investment banks. Brimming with insight into what investment bankers actually do, and told with biting humor and unflinching honesty, The Accidental Investment Banker offers a fascinating glimpse behind the scenes of the most powerful companies on Wall Street.

Author : Jonathan A. Knee
Publisher : Random House Trade Paperbacks
ISBN 13 : 0812978048
Total Pages : 290 pages
Book Rating : 4.49/5 ( download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!

Download or read book The Accidental Investment Banker written by Jonathan A. Knee and published by Random House Trade Paperbacks. This book was released on 2007-07-31 with total page 290 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Investment bankers used to be known as respectful of their clients, loyal to their firms, and chary of the financial system that allowed them to prosper. What happened? From his prestigious Wall Street perches at Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley, Jonathan A. Knee witnessed firsthand the lavish deal-making of the freewheeling nineties, when bankers rode the wave of the Internet economy, often by devil-may-care means. By the turn of the twenty-first century, the bubble burst and the industry was in free fall. Told with biting humor and unflinching honesty, populated with power players, back-stabbers, and gazillionaires, The Accidental Investment Banker is Knee’s exhilarating insider’s account of this boom-and-bust anything-goes era, when fortunes were made and reputations were lost. “A rare, ringside seat inside the madcap and often egomaniacal world of Wall Street’s Masters of the Universe . . . For would-be bankers, the book is an excellent primer on what it’s really like; for current bankers it will be a guilty pleasure.” –The New York Times “Finally we have someone willing to lift the curtain. . . . With refreshing candor and engaging prose, [this book] takes us inside the world of investment banking.” –James B. Stewart, author of Den of Thieves and DisneyWar “[Knee] captures the glories and agonies of his profession. General readers will marvel.” –The Wall Street Journal “Entertainingly indiscreet . . . Knee’s talent for wicked pen portraits is put to good use.” –Financial Times “For anyone who remembers the crazy boom times, and the even crazier bust, Jonathan A. Knee’s The Accidental Investment Banker is a must. This tell-all chronicles Knee’s time at Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley, revealing a world that rivals 24 in intrigue and drama.” –Fortune

Author : Bill Keenan
Publisher : Post Hill Press
ISBN 13 : 1642934097
Total Pages : 250 pages
Book Rating : 4.90/5 ( download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!

Download or read book Discussion Materials written by Bill Keenan and published by Post Hill Press. This book was released on 2020-03-31 with total page 250 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “Why aren’t you using LTM EBITDA for credit metrics?” asked the managing director who sat across from me, his widow’s peak clearly visible as he inspected the sheet in front of him. His spacious office looked out onto New York Harbor. “Bust,” said the vice president, who was a slightly younger, douchier version of Widow’s Peak. He slashed his red ballpoint pen across the sheet and flipped to the next page. “Walk me through the debt paydown and your interest rate assumptions,” continued the VP. “Pretty dovish view. Maybe the Fed knows what they’re doing after all,” said Widow’s Peak. He shot a glance at the VP. They shared a chuckle—at what, I couldn’t tell you. This question about interest rates I knew: Dovish, I thought. Doves fly south for the winter, so dovish is downwards…low interest rates— “We’re running short on time,” said Widow’s Peak. He flipped to the cover page of my presentation. “One final point—all pitch decks should have the same title.” “Since this presentation was geared towards an LBO analysis I was thinking—” “No thinking. All decks—same title—Discussion Materials.” Noted. Discussion Materials gives the reader an honest look at Wall Street from someone in the trenches. After graduating from Columbia Business School, Bill Keenan joined Deutsche Bank’s investment banking division as an associate where despotic superiors (and the blinking red light of his BlackBerry) instilled low-level terror on an hourly basis. You’ll join him in his cubicle on the 44th floor of 60 Wall Street as he scrambles to ensure floating bar charts are the correct shade of orange and all numbers are left-aligned, but whatever you do, don’t ask him what any of it means. Leaning heavily on his fellow junior bankers and the countless outsourcing resources the bank employs, he slowly develops proficiency at the job, eventually gaining traction and respect, one deal at a time, over a two-year span, ultimately cementing his legacy in the group by attaining the unattainable: placing a dinner order on Seamless one Sunday night at work from Hwa Yuan Szechuan amounting to $25.00 (tax and tip included), the bank’s maximum allowance for meals—the perfect order.

Author : Kevin Roose
Publisher : Grand Central Publishing
ISBN 13 : 1455572322
Total Pages : 336 pages
Book Rating : 4.28/5 ( download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!

Download or read book Young Money written by Kevin Roose and published by Grand Central Publishing. This book was released on 2014-02-18 with total page 336 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Becoming a young Wall Street banker is like pledging the world's most lucrative and soul-crushing fraternity. Every year, thousands of eager college graduates are hired by the world's financial giants, where they're taught the secrets of making obscene amounts of money-- as well as how to dress, talk, date, drink, and schmooze like real financiers. YOUNG MONEY Inside the Hidden World of Wall Street's Post-Crash Recruits YOUNG MONEY is the inside story of this well-guarded world. Kevin Roose, New York magazine business writer and author of the critically acclaimed The Unlikely Disciple, spent more than three years shadowing eight entry-level workers at Goldman Sachs, Bank of America Merrill Lynch, and other leading investment firms. Roose chronicled their triumphs and disappointments, their million-dollar trades and runaway Excel spreadsheets, and got an unprecedented (and unauthorized) glimpse of the financial world's initiation process. Roose's young bankers are exposed to the exhausting workloads, huge bonuses, and recreational drugs that have always characterized Wall Street life. But they experience something new, too: an industry forever changed by the massive financial collapse of 2008. And as they get their Wall Street educations, they face hard questions about morality, prestige, and the value of their work. YOUNG MONEY is more than an exposé of excess; it's the story of how the financial crisis changed a generation-and remade Wall Street from the bottom up.

Author : Jonathan A. Knee
Publisher : Penguin
ISBN 13 : 0593189442
Total Pages : 384 pages
Book Rating : 4.43/5 ( download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!

Download or read book The Platform Delusion written by Jonathan A. Knee and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2021-09-07 with total page 384 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An investment banker and professor explains what really drives success in the tech economy Many think that they understand the secrets to the success of the biggest tech companies: Facebook, Amazon, Apple, Netflix, and Google. It's the platform economy, or network effects, or some other magical power that makes their ultimate world domination inevitable. Investment banker and professor Jonathan Knee argues that the truth is much more complicated--but entrepreneurs and investors can understand what makes the giants work, and learn the keys to lasting success in the digital economy. Knee explains what really makes the biggest tech companies work: a surprisingly disparate portfolio of structural advantages buttressed by shrewd acquisitions, strong management, lax regulation, and often, encouraging the myth that they are invincible to discourage competitors. By offering fresh insights into the true sources of strength and very real vulnerabilities of these companies, The Platform Delusion shows how investors, existing businesses, and startups might value them, compete with them, and imitate them. The Platform Delusion demystifies the success of the biggest digital companies in sectors from retail to media to software to hardware, offering readers what those companies don't want everyone else to know. Knee's insights are invaluable for entrepreneurs and investors in digital businesses seeking to understand what drives resilience and profitability for the long term.

Author : Jonathan A. Knee
Publisher : Columbia University Press
ISBN 13 : 0231543336
Total Pages : 289 pages
Book Rating : 4.30/5 ( download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!

Download or read book Class Clowns written by Jonathan A. Knee and published by Columbia University Press. This book was released on 2016-11-29 with total page 289 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The past thirty years have seen dozens of otherwise successful investors try to improve education through the application of market principles. They have funneled billions of dollars into alternative schools, online education, and textbook publishing, and they have, with surprising regularity, lost their shirts. In Class Clowns, professor and investment banker Jonathan A. Knee dissects what drives investors' efforts to improve education and why they consistently fail. Knee takes readers inside four spectacular financial failures in education: Rupert Murdoch's billion-dollar effort to reshape elementary education through technology; the unhappy investors—including hedge fund titan John Paulson—who lost billions in textbook publisher Houghton Mifflin; the abandonment of Knowledge Universe, Michael Milken's twenty-year mission to revolutionize the global education industry; and a look at Chris Whittle, founder of EdisonLearning and a pioneer of large-scale transformational educational ventures, who continues to attract investment despite decades of financial and operational disappointment. Although deep belief in the curative powers of the market drove these initiatives, it was the investors' failure to appreciate market structure that doomed them. Knee asks: What makes a good education business? By contrasting rare successes, he finds a dozen broad lessons at the heart of these cautionary case studies. Class Clowns offers an important guide for public policy makers and guardrails for future investors, as well as an intelligent exposé for activists and teachers frustrated with the repeated underperformance of these attempts to shake up education.

Author : Lisa Endlich
Publisher : Knopf
ISBN 13 : 0307832996
Total Pages : 420 pages
Book Rating : 4.93/5 ( download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!

Download or read book Goldman Sachs written by Lisa Endlich and published by Knopf. This book was released on 2013-02-20 with total page 420 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The history, mystique, and remarkable success of Goldman Sachs, the world's premier investment bank, are examined in unprecedented depth in this fascinating and authoritative study. Former Goldman Sachs Vice President Lisa Endlich draws on an insider's knowledge and access to all levels of management to bring to life this unique company that has long mystified financial players and pundits. The firm's spectacular ascent is traced in the context of its tenacious grip on its core values. Endlich shows how close client contact, teamwork, focus on long-term profitability rather than short-term opportunism, and the ability to recruit consistently some of the most talented people on Wall Street helped the firm generate a phenomenal $3 billion in pretax profits in 1997. And she describes in detail the monumental events of 1998 that shook Goldman Sachs and the financial world. Her book documents some of the most stunning accomplishments in modern American finance, as told through the careers of the gifted and insightful men who have led Goldman Sachs. It begins with Marcus Goldman, a German immigrant who in 1869 founded the firm in a lower Manhattan basement. After the turn of the century, we see his son Henry and his son-in-law Sam Sachs develop a full-service bank. Sidney Weinberg, a kid from the streets, was initially hired as an assistant porter and became senior partner in 1930. We watch him as he steers the firm through the aftermath of the Crash and raises the Goldman Sachs name to national prominence. When he leaves in 1969 the firm has a solid-gold reputation and a first-class list of clients. We see his successor, Gus Levy, a trading wizard and in his day the best-known man on Wall Street, urging greater risk, inventing block trading (which revolutionized the exchanges), and psychologically preparing Goldman Sachs for the complex and perilous financial world that was the 1980s. Endlich shows us how co-CEOs John Whitehead and John Weinberg turned the family firm into a highly professional international organization with a culture that was the envy of Wall Street. She shows as well how Steve Friedman and Robert Rubin brought the firm to the pinnacle of investment banking, increased annual profits from $900 million to $2.7 billion, and achieved dominance in most of the businesses in which the firm competes internationally. We see how Goldman Sachs weathered both an insider trading scandal and the fallout from its relationship with Robert Maxwell. We are taken to the present day, as Jon Corzine and Hank Paulson lead the firm out of turmoil to face the most important decision ever placed before the partnership--the question of a public sale. For many years the leadership wrestled with the issue behind closed doors. Now, against the backdrop of unforeseen events, we witness the passionate debate that engulfed the entire partnership. A rare and revealing look inside a great institution--the last private partnership on Wall Street--and inside the financial world at its highest levels.

Author : K. Thomas Liaw
Publisher : John Wiley & Sons
ISBN 13 : 111812765X
Total Pages : 384 pages
Book Rating : 4.50/5 ( download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!

Download or read book The Business of Investment Banking written by K. Thomas Liaw and published by John Wiley & Sons. This book was released on 2011-10-04 with total page 384 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A comprehensive overview of investment banking for professionals and students The investment banking industry has changed dramatically since the 2008 financial crisis. Three of the top five investment banks in the United States have disappeared, while Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley have converted to commercial banking charters. This Third Edition of The Business of Investment Banking explains the changes and discusses new opportunities for students and professionals seeking to advance their careers in this intensely competitive field. The recent financial regulation overhaul, including the Dodd-Frank legislation, is changing what investment banks do and how they do it, while the Volcker rule has shaken up trading desks everywhere. This new edition updates investment banking industry shifts in practices, trends, regulations, and statistics Includes new chapters on investment banking in BRIC countries, as Brazil, Russia, India, and China now account for a quarter of the global economy Explains the shift in the listing of securities away from New York to various financial centers around the world, and how major exchanges compete for the same business This new edition, reflecting the current state of the investment banking industry, arrives in time to better serve professionals wanting to advance their careers and students just beginning theirs.

Author : John Rolfe
Publisher : Grand Central Publishing
ISBN 13 : 0759523207
Total Pages : 288 pages
Book Rating : 4.03/5 ( download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!

Download or read book Monkey Business written by John Rolfe and published by Grand Central Publishing. This book was released on 2009-11-29 with total page 288 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Animal House meets Liar's Poker in this hysterically funny, often unbelievable, and absolutely, positively true account of life at DLJ, one of the hottest investment banks on Wall Street. "Like most other young business school graduates, John Rolfe and Peter Troob thought that life in a major investment banking firm would make their wildest dreams come true -- it would be fast-paced, intellectually challenging, glamorous, and, best of all, lucrative. They were in for a surprise. For behind the walls of Wall Street's firms lies a stratum of stunted, overworked, abused, and in the end, very well-compensated, but very frustrated men and women. Monkey Business takes readers behind the scenes at Donaldson, Lufkin, and Jenrette (DLJ), one of Wall Street's hottest firms of the 90s, from the interview process to the courting of clients to bonus time. It's a glimpse of a side of the business the financial periodicals don't talk about -- 20-hour work days, trips across the country where associates do nothing except carry the pitch book, strip clubs at night, inflated salaries, and high-powered, unforgettable personalities. Monkey Business provides readers with a first-class education in the real life of an investment banker. But best of all, it is an extremely funny read about two young men who, on their way towards achieving the American dream, quickly realized they were selling their souls to get there."

Author : Joshua Rosenbaum
Publisher : John Wiley & Sons
ISBN 13 : 1119706580
Total Pages : 512 pages
Book Rating : 4.88/5 ( download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!

Download or read book Investment Banking written by Joshua Rosenbaum and published by John Wiley & Sons. This book was released on 2020-03-20 with total page 512 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A timely update to the global best-selling book on investment banking and valuation In the constantly evolving world of finance, a solid technical foundation is an essential tool for success. Due to the fast-paced nature of this world, however, no one was able to take the time to properly codify its lifeblood—namely, valuation and dealmaking. Rosenbaum and Pearl originally responded to this need in 2009 by writing the first edition of the book that they wish had existed when they were trying to break into Wall Street. Investment Banking: Valuation, LBOs, M&A, and IPOs, Third Edition is a highly accessible and authoritative book written by investment bankers that explains how to perform the valuation work and financial analysis at the core of Wall Street—comparable companies, precedent transactions, DCF, LBO, M&A analysis . . . and now IPO analytics and valuation. Using a step-by-step, how-to approach for each methodology, the authors build a chronological knowledge base and define key terms, financial concepts, and processes throughout the book. The genesis for the original book stemmed from the authors' personal experiences as students interviewing for investment banking positions. As they both independently went through the rigorous process, they realized that their classroom experiences were a step removed from how valuation and financial analysis were performed in real-world situations. Consequently, they created this book to provide a leg up to those individuals seeking or beginning careers on Wall Street—from students at undergraduate universities and graduate schools to "career changers" looking to break into finance. Now, over 10 years after the release of the first edition, the book is more relevant and topical than ever. It is used in over 200 universities globally and has become a go-to resource for investment banks, private equity, investment firms, and corporations undertaking M&A transactions, LBOs, IPOs, restructurings, and investment decisions. As the world of finance adjusts to the new normal of the post-Great Recession era, it merits revisiting the pillars of the second edition for today's environment. While the fundamentals haven't changed, the environment must adapt to changing market developments and conditions. As a result, Rosenbaum and Pearl have updated their widely adopted book accordingly, while adding two new chapters on IPOs.