Rainmaker - Hardcover

Unlike other Wall Street dealmakers who convinced themselves that the 1980s manic corporate takeover wave was restoring corporate America's entrepreneurial vigor, flamboyant investment banker Jeff Beck knew it was a con, a game run on greed and ego. But Beck, who as Drexel Burnham's "Mad Dog" rainmaker presided over the $8-billion leveraged buyout of Beatrice Foods, played the game with a vengeance, driven by a desperate craving for social status. He circulated extravagant fantasies about himself, claiming heroism as a U.S. Special Forces captain in Vietnam and spreading the fabrication that he had assembled a vast secret corporate empire called Rosebud. Though Beck never fought in Vietnam, actor-producer Michael Douglas, taken in by his tall tale, nearly made a movie about him. In a gripping parable of Reagan-era wishful thinking masquerading as optimism, this searching biography by Business Week reporter Bianco lays bare the deep psychic wounds and family skeletons that contributed to one rainmaker's rise and fall. Photos. Author tour.
Copyright 1991 Reed Business Information, Inc.

This vivid portrayal of a personality preoccupied with greed and self-promotion that was inspired by Wall Street's mergers and acquisitions mania is likely to attract a wide readership. Business Week writer Bianco is clearly fascinated by the fact that Beck's habit of fabricating stories about his own past combined with his untamed canine mannerisms did not hinder his rise to the rank of superstar in the M&A firmament. Possessed of personality traits that would make him an outcast in many other fields of endeavor, Beck did have the ability to bring business to the firms that employed him, including the ill-fated Drexel Burnham. Add this well-written biography to the growing body of literature on this watershed era in American finance. Excerpted in New York maga zine.
- Joseph Barth, U.S. Military Acad. Lib., West Point, N.Y.
Copyright 1991 Reed Business Information, Inc.