Big Deal ^{2nd Ed.}

Since the publication of Bruce Wasserstein's seminal Business Week bestseller BIG DEAL, an explosion of megamergers and acquisitions has rocked Wall Street. With advancing technology and stockpiles of cash fueling the frenzy, the corporate landscape is changing overnight. This new edition of BIG DEAL tells you where teh trends aregoing and why dealmaking in the new millenium is creating the biggest and most profitable businesses.

Chrysler-Daimler… Travelers-Salomon-Citicorp… NYNEX-Bell Atlantic… Ten years ago even the most visionary Wall Streeter could not have predicted the megamergers of the late 1990s. Analyzing the forces that made these mergers not only possible but inevitable, Wasserstein now presents a fascinating, colorful overview of the history of corporate mergers and buyouts from the roaring '20s to the current era.

A veteran of over one thousand corporate deals and a man who knows today's biggest players personally, from Barry Diller to Sumner Redstone, Wasserstein moves from the historical to the human dramas behind the headlines. He asks, and answers, the important questions that every financial watcher — and investor — needs to know. Are companies overpaying for their corporate acquisitions? What's the impact of the rise in Internet stock prices and the boom n IPOs? And, in assessing the big picture, Wasserstein makes a persuasive argument that the explosion of corporate alliances will have an effect as dramatic as the industrial revolution.

BIG DEAL is a masterful journey through the fascinating world of big business. Entertaining and illuminating from beginning to end, it explains why today's mergers and acquisitions change not only the way we do business, but the way we live.

• One: Past as Prelude
1. The Digital World Cometh
2. Mel, Barry, and Sumner Go Digital
3. History's Shadow
4. The Rise and Fall of the Conglomerate
5. The Deal Decade: Early Years
6. Troubled Years
7. The Merits of Mergers: The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly
• Two: The Strategic Challenge
1. The Strategic Dilemma
2. The Energy Wars: Globalization Reigns
3. Metamorphosis: Conglomerates Transformed
4. Financial Services in the Digital Age
5. The Telco Revolution: The Story of Ma Bell, Her Children, and Her Rivals
6. Racing Towards Cyberspace: The Media and the Message in the Age of Convergence
7. The Tumultuous World of Health Care
• Three: Doing the Deal
1. A Guide to the Players
2. The Price
3. Structuring the Deal
4. Implementing the Deal
5. Offense: Battlefield Tactics
6. Defense: Fight or Sell?
7. Defense: Building the Battlements
8. Defense: Battlefield Tactics
9. The Government Intervenes

In my opinion a pretty good book.

It starts with the history and goes forward via cases to some mechanics and strategies. The only drawback is its size: when is an abridged edition coming out?