Tag Archives: Finance

In My Hands Today…

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The Caesars Palace Coup: How a Billionaire Brawl Over the Famous Casino Exposed the Power and Greed of Wall Street – Sujeet Indap, Max Frumes

It was the most brutal corporate restructuring in Wall Street history. The 2015 bankruptcy brawl for the storied casino giant, Caesars Entertainment, pitted brilliant and ruthless private equity legends against the world’s most relentless hedge fund wizards.

In the tradition of Barbarians at the Gate and The Big Short comes the riveting, multi-dimensional poker game between private equity firms and distressed debt hedge funds that played out from the Vegas Strip to Manhattan boardrooms to Chicago courthouses and even, for a moment, the halls of the United States Congress. On one side: relentless financial engineers Marc Rowan, David Sambur, and David Bonderman with their teams at Apollo Global Management and TPG Capital. On the other: superstar distressed debt investors Dave Miller and Ryan Mollett with their cohorts at the likes of Elliott Management, Oaktree Capital, and Appaloosa Management.

The Caesars bankruptcy put a twist on the old-fashioned casino heist. Through a $27 billion leveraged buyout and a dizzying string of financial engineering transactions, Apollo and TPG―in the midst of the post-Great Recession slump―had seemingly snatched every prime asset of the company from creditors, with the notable exception of Caesars Palace. But Caesars’ hedge fund lenders and bondholders had scooped up the company’s paper for nickels and dimes. And with their own armies of lawyers and bankers, they were ready to do everything necessary to take back what they believed was theirs―if they could just stop their own infighting.

These modern financiers now dominate the scene in Corporate America as their fight-to-the-death mentality continues to shock workers, politicians, and broader society―and even each other.

In The Caesars Palace Coup, financial journalists Max Frumes and Sujeet Indap illuminate the brutal tactics of distressed debt mavens―vultures, as they are condemned―in the sale and purchase of even the biggest companies in the world with billions of dollars hanging in the balance.

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Billion Dollar Whale: The Man Who Fooled Wall Street, Hollywood, and the World – Tom Wright, Bradley Hope

An epic true-tale of hubris and greed from two Pulitzer-finalist Wall Street Journal reporters, Billion Dollar Whale reveals how a young social climber pulled off one of the biggest financial heists in history–right under the nose of the global financial industry–exposing the shocking secret nexus of elite wealth, banking, Hollywood, and politics.

The dust had yet to settle on the global financial crisis in 2009 when an unlikely Wharton grad was setting in motion a fraud of unprecedented gall and magnitude–one that would come to symbolize the next great threat to the global financial system.

Billion Dollar Whale will become a classic, harrowing parable about the financial world in the twenty-first century.

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Never Enough: From Barista to Billionaire – Andrew Wilkinson

Andrew Wilkinson, touted as the Warren Buffett of tech, pulls back the curtain on the lives of the ultra-rich in this memoir outlining Wilkinson’s rapid rise from barista to successful entrepreneur.

Readers will get fresh insights into building a successful business and a surprising, first-person account of what it’s actually like to become a billionaire.

By the age of thirty-five, Andrew Wilkinson had built a business worth over a billion dollars, but his path to success was anything but a straight line. Never Enough shares both the lessons Wilkinson has learned as well as the many mistakes made on the road to wealth—some of which cost him money, happiness, and important relationships.

Taking a “no secrets” approach to the story billionaires rarely tell, Wilkinson is unwaveringly honest about some of the unexpected downsides of wealth. Money’s toxic effect on personal relationships, how the lifestyles of the rich and famous aren’t all they’re cracked up to be, and how competition with peers leaves everyone—even billionaires—feeling like they never have enough.

In this rare and deeply honest glimpse into the life of a billionaire, Wilkinson examines not only his journey to nine zeros but also what comes after that pinnacled number—something, as Wilkinson has come to realize, that money can’t buy.

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The Wealth Money Can’t Buy: The 8 Hidden Habits to Live Your Richest Life – Robin S. Sharma

Real wealth is so much more than cash in the bank, flashy cars in the driveway and luxury vacations on exotic islands. Too many financially prosperous people are surprisingly poor when it comes to the things that truly matter for a life of happiness, vitality, and serenity.

Society has sold us a version of success that has left too many people feeling empty, frustrated, and filled with regret. Fortunately, there is a much better way to live.

In The Wealth Money Can’t Buy, you will discover a life-altering system that will help you lead your richest life before it’s too late. You will learn a framework based on the eight hidden habits used by authentically rich people and gain a methodology to master your destiny. Open this book and allow a trusted mentor to offer you valuable insights, including how to become a “perfect moment” creator, why your choice of mate is 90% of your joy, the power of “The 10,000 Dinners Question”, hidden habits of authentically wealthy people, and the brilliance of “going ghost” for a year

Legendary personal growth expert Robin Sharma has mentored billionaires, superstar athletes, and heads of state, teaching them The 8 Forms of Wealth Model with transformational results. Now, you will learn it, too, and create the lifetime of your highest dreams.

Full of practical tools and transformational tactics, The Wealth Money Can’t Buy offers a life-changing philosophy and methodology for enjoying a genuinely rich life—filled with personal power, unusual authenticity, exceptionally fulfilling work, and a lifestyle that will make you feel that fortune has finally smiled on you.

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The Psychology of Money – Morgan Housel

Doing well with money isn’t necessarily about what you know. It’s about how you behave. And behaviour is hard to teach, even to brilliant people. Money—investing, personal finance, and business decisions—is typically taught as a math-based field, where data and formulas tell us exactly what to do. But in the real world, people don’t make financial decisions on a spreadsheet. They make them at the dinner table or in a meeting room, where personal history, your own unique view of the world, ego, pride, marketing, and odd incentives are scrambled together. In The Psychology of Money, award-winning author Morgan Housel shares 19 short stories exploring the strange ways people think about money and teaches you how to make better sense of one of life’s most important topics.