Merchants of debt : KKR and the mortgaging of American business

first Published In 1992 (by Basic Books), This Reprint Is Timely Now In The Wake Of Enron And Worldcom. Anders Tells The Story Of How Kohlberg Kravis Roberts (kkr) Took Advantage Of Wall Street's Tolerance Of Debt To Finagle Massive Corporate Takeovers Of Companies That Included Safeway, Drexel, And Nabisco. Anders Was A Journalist And Editor At the Wall Street Journal And Is Now With fast Company Magazine. Annotation C. Book News, Inc.,portland, Or publishers Weekly this Inside Look From A Wall Street Journal Reporter At Massive Leveraged-buyout Operations Of The Manhattan-based Kohlberg Kravis Roberts Financial Partnership During The 1980s Is Beautifully Organized And Written In Immediate And Lively Prose. Anders Explains How Kkr, With Incredible Audacity, Borrowed Billions In Cash From Investment Bankers, Pension Plans, College Endowments And Even Their Takeover Targets' Willing Management To Buy And Saddle With Heavy Deductible Debut Such Giant Corporations As Safeway, Beatrice, Duracell And Rjr Nabisco. After Quick And Ruthless Efficiency Measures Were Imposed On The Corporations To Enhance Earnings And Pay Off The Debt, Assets Were Then Resold, Yielding Millions Of Dollars In Fees And Profits. The Game Collapsed With The 1990 Onset Of Recession, And The Author Here Reveals How Kkr Leadership Survived While Other Financiers Went Under Or To Jail. First Serial To Wall Street Journal. (june) Copyright......Page 2 Dedication......Page 3 Introduction......Page 5 1. Courting CEOs......Page 15 2. The Growing Allure of Debt......Page 38 3. In Pursuit of Profits......Page 67 4. How to Talk to Banks......Page 90 5. The Enchanting World of Drexel......Page 118 6. The Takeover Minstrels......Page 153 7. The Mentor’s Fall......Page 183 8. Ruling an Industrial Empire......Page 213 9. The Discipline of Debt......Page 239 10. Cashing Out......Page 261 11. “We Don’t Have Any Friends”......Page 287 12. Credit Crunch......Page 309 13. Fear, Humbling, and Survival......Page 332 14. Debt Is Out, Equity Is In......Page 360 15. KKR Today......Page 376 Appendix......Page 389 Acknowledgements......Page 409 Notes......Page 411 For more than a decade, Henry Kravis and George Roberts have been archetypes, first of Wall Street's boom years and then of its excesses. Their story and that of their firm - the biggest, most successful and most controversial participant in the age of leverage - illuminates an entire era of financial high jinks and speculative mania.