For example, Felix Rohakin, the most outstanding trading master in its history, was evaluated by colleagues as "working for Felix is equivalent to being sentenced to death". Michelle david weir, the fifth CEO, is known as the "King of the Sun", and Bruce Wasserstein, the current CEO, has also intensified her efforts in an open way.
"He (Wasserstein) is a dictator. He is good at pushing me down from the highest position ... Now Lazard makes me feel very contradictory. I am glad that it can survive and work well, but I regret that this company has not reached the point where people forget to pay. " Michelle David Weil said. Indeed, Wasserstein is a person who makes people feel contradictory. As far as achievement is concerned, Wasserstein is respected enough. But in terms of interpersonal relationship in employment, he is not a popular person.
In the1980s, when wasserstein worked for First Boston, he was still a bloated man. At that time, his opponents nicknamed him "high-priced Bruce" because he was like a hypnotist, letting customers buy at the highest price in history. At that time, he was the most neglected person on Wall Street, and Henry Kravis, a master of private equity investment, even hired him just to keep him away from his own projects. However, under the leadership of Wasserstein, First Boston was teetering in the crazy1980s. Later, he and Joe Perella, another legendary banker on Wall Street, established Wasserstein Perella, an investment bank. This bank was finally acquired by Dresden Bank, the third largest bank in Germany, in 2000, with a total amount of 654.38+06 billion euros.
He has no secrets, only the most basic values: "As long as you stay enthusiastic, keep an eye on your biggest customer and make sure that the best deal you make is for yourself, then you can stand in the banking industry." According to industry estimates, since 1993, no one has made more money than him in the investment banking field-since 1980, he has participated in 1000 transactions involving more than $250 billion.
When he accepted Lazard, the company was dying.
Many people in Lazard believe that Wasserstein's greatest contribution is to restore Lazard's talent pool. For example, he recruited Gary Parr and william louis from Morgan Stanley, who are the co-heads of the company's M&A department. The condition for these two people to join is that they will not participate in anyone's management except their own secretary.
After joining Lazard, wasserstein thought Lazard's IPO was imperative. However, due to the company's internal reasons, the IPO time has been delayed. Among them, the biggest difficulty is probably Michelle's obstruction.
Michelle is not optimistic about Lazard's IPO and even dismissive of Wawa's move. He never thought of listing the company founded by his family. Michelle once formally gave Wa an ultimatum: "I and most members of the board of directors are opposed to your IPO plan. If the IPO is not realized on June 30, 2005, you will resign from Lazard. " Although this time limit was later extended by Michelle to the end of the year, the IPO plan is still difficult to achieve overnight.
Obviously, Wasserstein is facing a "collective" offensive. According to Wasserstein's plan, Lazard will buy about 36% shares held by Michelle and other shareholders at the price of $654.38+$25 million. Lazard's enterprise value is $3.2 billion, including $2.5 billion in equity and $700 million in creditor's rights. In Wasserstein's plan, 25% of the shares will be sold to the public. However, when Michelle issued an ultimatum, she asked Wa to buy the shares held by him and other shareholders at the price of $65,438+$0.665438+$60 million, which was $366 million higher than Wa's previous plan. As we all know, if Wa wants to control the company and take Lazard as its own, the only legal way out is to buy shares in others' hands and get rid of Michelle's obstruction.
Wa began to "bribe" board members to buy their support for IPO. This method is very effective, and the opponents who pursue interests turn to the IPO side because they get benefits.
But the question is, where did Michelle's161600 million dollars come from? Wasserstein received an investment of $200 million through cooperation with French bank Caisse d'Epargne. In addition, he also publicly sold stock securities through "leveraged capital restructuring", raising $287.5 million to provide investors with interest-bearing debts and stock guarantees. Later, he injected $900 million in new debt into Lazard, and with the expected return of IPO of $8,654,380,200, Wawa could buy shares of Michelle and existing shareholders.
At this point, Lazard successfully completed the IPO.
After Lazard IPO, Wasserstein owns 65,438+065,438+0.275 million shares of Lazard, making it the largest shareholder of the company. Wasserstein is now a thin old man, still unsmiling and sarcastic, and the wrinkles on his face seem to tell people everything he has experienced. He said that Lazard's success is largely due to its opponents underestimating its danger. Lazard is already in M & amp； Market A adopts a counter-cyclical strategy to buy or establish joint ventures with banks in Latin America, Australia and Central Europe.