The Reichmanns: Family, Faith, Fortune, and the Empire of Olympia & York [Illustrated] [Hardcover]

Anthony Bianco (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: December 30, 1996

The epic rise and spectacular fall of the devoutly religious and secretive family that was one of the ten richest of the world. The Reichmanns is filled with fascinating characters, epic scope, and an illuminating look at the world of the ultra-orthodox. 16 pp. of photos. 608 pp. Author tour. Targeted ads. Online promotion. 35,000 print.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

The Reichmanns' astonishing saga began in Hungary and swept through Austria, France, and North Africa before achieving apotheosis in Canada, where the secretive, ultra-orthodox Jewish family founded Olympia & York Development, the greatest real estate empire in the world at its peak in the 1980s. The company's collapse into bankruptcy in 1992 is a modern cautionary tale of biblical proportions, rendered by business journalist Anthony Bianco in lavish detail backed by formidable research. Interviews with various family members enable the author to plumb personalities as well as profit motives; their decision to cooperate is justified by his careful fairness.

From Booklist

A decade ago, the Reichmanns of Toronto were ranked as one of the 10 wealthiest families in the world. Olympia & York, the five brothers' flagship real estate company, had major developments throughout the world. The story of 0 & Y's collapse has already been told well by Peter Foster in Towers of Debt: The Rise and Fall of the Reichmanns (1993) and by Walter Stewart in Too Big to Fail: Olympia & York, the Story behind the Headlines (1993). Both of those authors sketched in details of the Reichmann family history, but Bianco delves deep into the Reichmann genealogy, beginning during the "golden age of Hungarian Jewry" in the 1600s. He chronicles how the family prospered, first as egg merchants in Vienna and then, after fleeing the Nazis to Tangier, as currency traders. The Reichmanns are ultra-Orthodox Jews, and Bianco focuses on their beliefs, showing how they were able to balance their insular life in Toronto with the demands of a worldwide real estate empire. David Rouse

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 810 pages
• Publisher: Times Books; 1ST edition (December 30, 1996)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0812921402
• ISBN-13: 978-0812921403
• Product Dimensions: 9.4 x 6.1 x 1.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.6 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (10 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #680,222 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Details of a lost culture and a lost business empire, June 23, 2001

By 

Dunstan Boyko (Abiquiu, NM, USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Reichmanns: Family, Faith, Fortune, and the Empire of Olympia & York (Paperback)

The book discusses in great detail the Reichmann family's role both in Jewish culture over the last couple hundred years and in the real estate developement business over the last 40 or so years.

The part I liked the best was the descriptions of 18th and 19th century Jewish life in the "oberland"(sp?) of Hungary. A lost culture, thanks not only to the Nazis but also to Jewish Emancipation.

In a way, it is inspirational, as it shows how one family managed to integrate a healthy, traditional religious expression with philanthropy and business acumen. It also shows that you cannot understand what makes that family "tick" without understanding the rich culture and religion of orthodox jewishness.

The greatest strength of this book, in my opinion, is that it is a _history_ of the family and its business, religious, philanthropic, and cultural dealings. It isnt the hagiography that so many business biographies in the popular press tend to be.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Brian Wells Esq. Reviews "The Reichmanns", August 29, 1997

By A Customer

This review is from: The Reichmanns: Family, Faith, Fortune, and the Empire of Olympia & York (Hardcover)

Just as stated in the dust cover of the book, Anthony
Bianco's book "The Reichmanns"combines the themes of
at least three other books i.e."World of Our Fathers",
"The Warburgs" and "Barbarians at the Gate."
Addtionally, the book throws some addtional light on
Margaret Thacher's England and the Mulrooney
government of Canada in the 1980s. The book reads
like a novel and holds the reader entranced all the way to
the end.

This reviewer came to the book without even having
heard of the Reichmann family previously and still found
the book a very comfortable read. The book makes very
few pretensions about the previous knowlege of the reader.
What unfamiliar terms are used by Bianco in this book are
Yiddish and Hebrew phrases intentionally added to lend an
authentic atomosphere to the book. The terms are
repeated often enough that they too become a comfortable
part of the text.

Bianco, as the author of a previous book on business
and the economy--"Rainmaker"-- is well suited to the
subject matter. Early in the book he sets out to explain the
fresh egg trade in Europe prior to World War II (revealing
that England imported most of the fresh eggs that it
consumed and most of those eggs came from Hungary)..
But his style draws the reader in and the book ends up
making even the egg trade of Europe interesting to the
average reader.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars I recommend the book, May 22, 2005

By 

Kevin Kingston (ny) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Reichmanns: Family, Faith, Fortune, and the Empire of Olympia & York (Paperback)

The Reichmanns

The book, "The Reichmanns; Family, Faith, Fortune and The Empire of Olympia & York" by Anthony Bianco is a 668 page mind boggling tale of a family dynasty that came from nowhere and rose to one of the most wealthy families in the world in one generation. The book explains how through Paul Reichmann's insatiable drive and willingness to parlay the profit from each successful project into a much larger endeavor, their wealth exploded to over $10 billion at the peak, just before risking everything on Canary Warf on London's East End.

At times it's a bit of a fight to get through the sections that are not related to business and real estate, but those sections give you a good idea about the family's morals and values and bring you closer to understanding their thinking.

A memorable section is when they braved the NYC real estate slump of 1976 - 1997 and purchased eight skyscrapers from the Uris Building Corporation for $46 million down. Within a decade the package would have a value of over $3 billion.

The book is packed with similar anecdotes that both inspire and encourage someone wanting to build a real estate fortune of their own.

By Kevin Kingston author of, "A 20,000% Gain in Real Estate"