The Devil′s Casino: Friendship, Betrayal, and the High Stakes Games Played Inside Lehman Brothers - Hardcover

Ward, Vicky

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0470540869 ISBN 13: 9780470540862

Publisher: John Wiley & Sons, 2010

Synopsis

The inside story of what really happened at Lehman Brothers andwhy it failedIn The Devil's Casino: Friendship, Betrayal, and the High StakesGames Played Inside Lehman Brothers, investigative writer andVanity Fair contributing editor Vicky Ward takes readers insideLehman's highly charged offices. What Ward uncovers is a muchbigger story than Lehman losing at the risky game of collateralizeddebt obligations, swaps, and leverage.A can't put it down page turner that opens the world of WallStreet to view unlike any book since Bonfire of the Vanities,except that The Devil's Casino isn't fiction. * Details what went on behind-the-scenes the weekend LehmanBrothers failed, as well as inside Lehman during the twenty yearspreceding it * Describes the feudal culture that proved both Lehman's strengthand its Achilles' heel * Written by Vicky Ward, one of today's most connected businessand finance writersOn Wall Street, Lehman Brothers was cheekily known as "the catwith nine lives." But as The Devil's Casino documents, this catpushed its luck too far and died?the victim of men and womenblinded by arrogance.

About this title

Review

"Contains some fascinating pen-portraits of Lehman'scharacters--Mr Fuld and his sycophantic court . . . ." (TheEconomist Online)

"Ward sheds light on the four childhood friends who planned totake the financial world by storm while keeping their heads ontheir shoulders, and how quickly the second part of the play fellby the wayside amidst a brutal corporate coup and bumblingmismanagement that brought the firm down. The Devil's Casinoserves as both an impressive work of investigative journalism and acautionary tale of the culture surrounding American finance."(The Daily Beast)

"Ward's book is rich on details . . . when Ward connects thedots, the rough conclusion she comes up with is that fatal flaws ofFuld's culture brought Lehman down." (Reuters)

"A fascinating, deftly paced tale." (Metro.co.uk)

"Vanity Fair Contributing Editor Vicky Ward servesup a book about an investment bank that is a spicy, dishy dish . .. Ward builds a convincing case that duplicity and betrayal in themid-'90s eventually led to the demise of Lehman Brothers."(Bloomberg BusinessWeek)

..".The Devil's Casino has everything readers mightwant to know about the personal foibles and shopping habits of keyLehman leaders and their wives...a fascinating read."(Financial Times)

"What's remarkable about this narrative is that Ward...managesto humanize many of the central figures involved in the rise andfall of one of Wall Street's largest firms, offering profoundinsight into the titans of finance whose recklessness, greed, andcompetitiveness brought the US economy to the brink of collapse.The story plays out like a Shakespearean tragedy (Ward evenincludes a "Cast of Characters") in which the very principles uponwhich the firm was built prove to be its undoing. . . TheDevil's Casino. offers a fascinating glimpse into the cultureof one of the most powerful firms on Wall Street. One hopes thatthe history it chronicles will also serve as a cautionary tale forthe financial industry's still-uncertain future." (The BostonGlobe)

"In a terrific book Vicky Ward takes us into the heart of thedenial machine. Hers is the story of Lehman Brothers, then WallStreet's fourth largest investment bank, soon to be its biggestcasualty. . . Ward takes us into the world of these bankers, andshows us the lives they were leading in the years before the crash.At first, they saw themselves as "good guys" - bankers whowould not become blinded by greed. But then they began to see howmuch money could be made and their lifestyles changed. They did notseem to be their old selves any more. This is what Ward does sowell: she shows us the world of private jets and helicopters, thewomen with personal shoppers and shelves full of unworn shoes. Sheshows us how it is that people, even though they aremulti-millionaires, can still have an addict's desperation formoney." (The Guardian)

In the fall of 2008, the 150-year-old financial institutionLehman Brothers spectacularly melted down. The liquefied remainsthen ignited, joining the worldwide conflagration that became thegreat recession that is now either over or not, depending on whomyou talk to. In short order, a host of formerly rock-solidinstitutions showed cracks that ran all the way from theirfoundations to the aeries occupied by their greedy, ineffectivesenior management. Firms that once represented all that wastrustworthy in our financial system teetered, then fell. Eveninsurance companies that were responsible for the welfare of otherswere revealed to be the oldest permanent floating craps game in NewYork.

"Vicky Ward's "The Devil's Casino" is an able new entrant intothis crowded genre, and people who hate losers who are not theirfriends should enjoy it very much. It chronicles the sad and messyend of the House of Lehman in a relatively terse and fast-moving270 pages, making it a mere social X-ray of a book by today'sstandards of nonfiction heft, which often rivals the unsecured debtload of a failed bank. Ward carefully and skillfully tracks thelast 25 or so years of the great, doomed enterprise, and herportrait of a business entity is often engaging, spicy and amusing.I particularly enjoyed the horror stories about those few, strategically challenged souls who had the temerity not to learngolf. Theirs was a demise that only outsiders to our fascistcorporate golfing culture can appreciate. And the tick-tock ofdeals, fads, decisions and transactions that took place over a verylong time can be exciting. The book also does a fine job ofsketching several outlandishly banal individuals who rose toprominence in the firm and ultimately were responsible, each in adifferent way, for its demise." (The Washington Post)

"Vicky Ward is a British export to New York, with a degree inEnglish Literature - and it shows. She writes stylishly andshe understands, unlike other authors who have rushed into printwith accounts of the financial crisis, that enduring literature isnot created by unravelling transactions but by illuminating complexpersonalities." (Mail on Sunday)

"Vicky Ward's The Devil's Casino is an able.entrant into this crowded genre, and people who hate losers who arenot their friends should enjoy it very much. It chronicles the sadand messy end of the House of Lehman in a relatively terse andfast-moving 270 pages. Ward carefully and skillfully tracks thelast 25 or so years of the great, doomed enterprise, and herportrait of a business entity is often engaging, spicy and amusing.The book also does a fine job sketching several outlandishly banalindividuals who rose to prominence in the firm and ultimately wereresponsible, each in a different way, for its demise."(Stanley Bing, The Free Press)

"A terrific tale of the weird andnot-so-wonderful world of Lehman Brothers: thepersonalities, the bonuses, and best of all the backstabbingpolitics of the Louboutin-shod bankers' Wags. The now-vilifiedformer CEO, Richard Fuld, is portrayed not just as the aggressive"Gorilla" of Wall Street lore but as a human sponge who absorbedthe attributes of smarter colleagues to the point of stealing theirentire personality." (The Guardian)

"The Devil's Casino, well researched, chatty, lively, sets itself up as a successor to Greed and Glory on WallStreet, Ken Auletta's 1986 book about Lehman. But theclichés of business articles are too frequent here: standingovations on the trading floor, the rich wife's shoecollection and so on. . . as she charts the rivalries of life onWall Street, Ward entertains with rich detail: the rough-edged Fuldtaking elocution lessons and copying the nail-clipping habits of asmoother senior whose job he desires; Henry Kissinger at a boardmeeting, stirring his iced tea with a pencil. Ward shows that morethan two dec-ades ago, Lehman was developing dodgy habits thatwould cause trouble later. For example, it used a secret cashcushion known as "Dick's reserve" to polish itsresults at the end of each quarter. The book skillfully depicts thelives lived in the background of great clashing events. And it alsohints at what Wall Street has become since the crisis, at theapparent dominance of two survivors, Goldman Sachs and JPMorganChase." (The New York Times)

From the Back Cover

"Lehman Brothers, the oldest partnership on Wall Street, was alwaysa brilliant but cursed child. Its life, and death, tells us why itwas a magnet for talent, and why it was toxic. There have been aslew of terrific books on how Wall Street brought the economy toits knees, but in The Devil's Casino, Vicky Ward doessomething unusual. She takes the reader inside. Not just inside thefinancial instruments, but inside the culture that sired them;inside the families, including the spouses and children thatenjoyed lavish riches; and inside the internal rivalries andmismanagement that speeded the fall. Readers of this remarkabletale do not stand outside looking in, their noses pressed to theglass; we are inside looking out. We feel the seething greed andjealousies--the stuff that makes novels come alive. In theend, the child dies. But because of the way Vicky Ward unspools thesaga of Lehman, its life and death will both instruct and foreversear your memory."
--KEN AULETTA, author of Googled: The End of theWorld as We Know It and Greed and Glory on Wall Street: TheFall of the House of Lehman

"The Devil's Casino tells the riveting story of the fourbest friends who rebuilt Lehman Brothers, vowing to be 'the goodguys of Wall Street, ' only to find themselves corrupted by thepoisonous culture there. With its illicit affairs, treachery, séances, boardroom backstabbing, and friendships and familiestorn apart, the book reads like a page-turning thriller. Who wouldguess that the story of life at Lehman would turn out to be evenmore dramatic than the firm's headline-grabbing, economy-shakingdemise."
--ARIANNA HUFFINGTON, cofounder and Editor in Chief ofThe Huffington Post

"The Devil's Casino is the totally compelling true story, deeply researched but as exciting as a thriller--the almostmythical saga of four friends destroyed by money, sex, andambition, with a cast of greedy larger-than-life Wall Streetmonsters, and an intimate history of the fall of Lehman. Asexciting and important as Barbarians at the Gate, it's a grippingportrait of American society and financial culture that explainsmuch of what is happening today. I can already see themovie."
--SIMON SEBAG MONTEFIORE, author of Stalin: TheCourt of the Red Tsar

"The Devil's Casino is more than a history of LehmanBrothers; it is a saga of four friends who were prepared tosacrifice everything--including each other--in the questfor money and power. The devil here is not in the details, but inthe souls of the men who lost their moral compass while looking forthe corner suite. Vicky Ward has written a superb social historythat should serve as a warning and a reminder to all who work onWall Street."
--Dr. AMANDA FOREMAN, author of Georgiana: Duchessof Devonshire

Edition details

• Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
• Publication date: 2010
• ISBN 10: 0470540869
• ISBN 13: 9780470540862
• Binding: Hardcover
• Language: English
• Number of pages: 288