Customer Reviews

The rise and fall of Alan Bond

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

In the film "Wall Street" Gordon Gekko said "Greed is good, greed is right. Greed works!"

Gordon Gekko is unfit to tie the sandals of Alan Bond.

Bond built a $5Billion empire in Australia in the 1980's, starting in 1983 when he won the America's Cup. By the end of the 1990's he was bankrupt with millions of dollars hidden offshore in places that don't like to co-operate with bankrupcy trustees.

Bond performed a miracle - he lost money selling beer to Australians.

Paul Barry writes a rollicking yarn of a scoundrel of the highest order. A must read for the greedy or those who like to watch the greedy get away with it.

If you want to know how the business world works, and I mean REALLY works, boy, is this ever the book for you.

But what most makes this book great is that the author is not only an extremely capable investigator: he is also a very gifted writer. He knows how to turn a series of events into a gripping narrative, and does so without ever sacrificing the underlying rigor of his work. Quite simply, this book is fun to read - albeit only if you have a pretty dark sense of humour. But then, I defy anyone to suvive life in the world of big business without that!

If you are a serious investor or a student of finance, or even starting out as a working finance professional, I think the single greatest thing you'll get out of this book is a deeper appreciation of the power and the perils of leverage. It's one thing to sit in a lecture and hear someone tell you that leverage increases both risk and return; but this book takes the lesson to a whole new level. It not only takes that abstract idea and turns it into something concrete - it makes the lesson come alive. Yeah... I know that's a bit of a cliché. But the thing is, this book actually does it.

Another, arguably even more fundamental lesson that all readers should draw from this work is just how far really first rate sales skills can take you in life.

I am by no means exaggerating when I say that this is one of my all time favorite business books. In fact, the only other really serious contender for first place would be Michael Lewis's famous classic Liar's Poker. If you one day aspire to become a truly sophisticated investor - not in the technical legal sense, but in a far more genuine and meaningful sense - it is my personal opinion that you could do a good deal worse than begin by just sitting down and reading these two books.

Theo.