wrong. For захвата корпораций нужно не больше ума, чем для сбыта облигаций. At the same time, much more time is spent on developing plans for the operation than on trying to understand why this is needed at all. IN глубине их души покоится свирепая убежденность, что все, что позволяет им разбогатеть, непременно хорошо и для мира в целом. The epitome of the corporate takeover market is a highly energized, wildly ambitious 26-year-old man hired by a major US investment bank, constantly smiling and talking on the phone.

The process of taking over corporations is astonishingly simple, and it is frightening when you consider its impact on employees, management, shareholders, and the surrounding communities. A young man of 26 years old, who was playing with his computer late at night in London or New York, it seemed that the paper manufacturer from Oregon was somehow wrongly cheap. He draws up the calculations and sends them by telex to all organizations that may have any interest in paper, Oregon, or buying up cheap companies. Like the organizer of a party, our young man keeps a diagram on the table - who is related to whom. But приглашения он рассылает не скупясь. TOупить может любой, потому что любой может с помощью мусорных облигаций собрать нужные деньги. Now the Oregon paper maker has become a target.

The next day, the papermaker reads about himself in the Wall Street Journal in the Rumors section. Цены его акций начинают биться в конвульсиях, как висельник, поскольку спекулянты типа ANDвана Бески уже начали скупать его акции в надежде быстренько наварить баксов на их перепродаже захватчику. The paper manufacturer panics and hires an investment banker to protect him. Theseм банкиром может оказаться даже тот самый молодой человек, который уже стал причиной его бедствий. Five other 26-year-olds out of five previously unemployed in investment banking read the same gossip column and begin to scour the world for a buyer for the paper company. TOак только покупатель найден, компания официально считается выставленной на кон. IN то же самое время армия алчного молодняка с помощью своих компьютеров прочесывает подряд всех производителей бумаги в Америке в поисках других дешевых вариантов. IN самое короткое время вся отрасль уже готова к захвату.

So much money was made in advising attackers and defenders in the case of large companies that even trading in bonds began to resemble beggarly entertainment. Drexel received more than $100 million in commissions for organizing the takeover operation alone. IN 1987 году INассерштейн и Перелла заработали на комиссионных для своего банка First Boston 385 миллионов dollars. Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, Shearson Lehman and other investment banks, wasted no time in taking positions in the consulting market, and although none of these firms had the same market power as Salomon Brothers, they made huge money. Salomon Brothers had been eyeing the corporate takeover market for too long and never turned around in the junk bond market, which is why the golden shower didn't touch it. For такой пассивности не было никаких разумных причин, если не считать определенного нежелания покидать освоенную нишу рынка облигаций. With our starting positions and easy access to national credit resources, the firm could easily become a leader in financing takeover operations. We, of course, had an excuse: those who missed such magnificent opportunities are in dire need of excuses. Ours was simple: junk bonds are evil and destructive. Генри TOауфман повсюду произносил речи о том, что корпоративная Америка увязла в долгах и мода на мусорные облигации окончится грандиозным крахом. Maybe he was right, but that's not why we stayed away from junk bonds. We bypassed this market only because our upper management did not understand it, and in the midst of the civil war on the 41st floor, no one had the time or energy to understand it.

John Gutfreund can declare all he wants that the reason for our passivity was that he did not approve of the results - the overburdening of companies with loans. But все его утверждения рухнули, когда он, как пилот-камикадзе, ринулся в операции с мусорными облигациями и навлек крах на Salomon Brothers и нескольких наших клиентов. (AND не имело значения, что он и Генри TOауфман приобретали мусорные облигации на собственный счет, поддерживая при этом чистоту политики фирмы.) IN любом случае, с нашим участием или без него, каждая компания, в том числе и Salomon Brothers, стала потенциальной целью для налетчиков Milkenа. IN этом-то и заключалась главная ироничность нападения, предпринятого Рональдом Перельманом. The attack on us was financed by junk bonds, and all this was possible only because we ourselves did not enter the buyout market financed by junk bonds.

INскоре после того, как стало известно о притязаниях Перельмана, Гутфренд обратился к сотрудникам с речью, в которой выразил неудовольствие операциями по недружественному taking over companies and the intention to resist Perelman, that is, he said everything that could be guessed without his speeches, but in the most important thing, we remained, as usual, in the dark. We had to learn how events unfolded from reports by James Sterngold in the New York Times and from analytical reviews in the Wall Street Journal.

And the story unfolded like this. The first tears came on September 19, Saturday morning, a few days before publication. IN это утро Гутфренду позвонил домой его приятель и адвокат Мартин Липтон, офис которого он за два месяца до того использовал, чтобы сообщить Леви Раньери об увольнении. Lipton learned that Salomon Brothers' largest shareholder, Minorco, had found a buyer for its 14 percent stake in the company. ANDмя покупателя пока что было тайной. Gutfreund must have been very upset by this. He had been aware for several months that Minorco wanted to sell his stake, but it took too long to figure out how to react to this. Such slowness proved unwise, as he eventually lost control of the process. Устав от неопределенности Гутфренда, Minorco попросила о помощи в продаже своих акций другие инвестиционные банки Уолл-straight.

IN среду 23 сентября Гутфренд узнал от президента Minorco дурную новость, что покупателем является корпорация Revlon. It became clear that we were talking about an attempt to capture. INладелец Revlon Перельман заявил, что, помимо 14-процентного пакета, принадлежащего Minorco, он хотел бы купить еще 11 % акций Salomon и довести свою долю до 25 %. If Perelman had succeeded, Gutfreund would have lost control of the firm.

Gutfreund began looking for another buyer for Minorco instead of Revlon. He called his friend Warren Buffett, a sophisticated money market manager. Buffett naturally demanded to be paid to save Gutfreund, and the latter offered him startlingly sweet terms. So that Buffett wouldn't have to buy our shares outright, Gutfreund suggested that he lend us the money, and we'd use it to buy our own shares. Нам нужно было 809 миллионов dollars. Buffett said that he would give 700 million, and with this money he would take our bonds. The offer is pretty fair. Gutfreund could take the missing 109 million from the accounts of the firm itself.

INсе инвесторы мира могли бы позавидовать Уоррену Баффетту, because his position was invulnerable. TOупленные им ценные бумаги — конвертируемые привилегированные облигации — приносили 9 процентов годовых, что само по себе очень недурной доход. TO тому же в любой момент до 1996 года он имел право обменять их на акции Salomon Brothers по цене 38 долларов за акцию. ANDными словами, в последующие девять лет у Баффетта был выбор. If the firm remains in a precarious state, Buffett will be content with his 9 percent. If the firm somehow gets back on its feet, Buffett will be able to convert his bonds into stocks and make even more money. IN отличие от Рональда Перельмана, который намеревался купить большой пакет наших акций и поработать над будущим Salomon Brothers, Баффетт всего лишь разумно ставил на то, что фирма не обанкротится.

Making a deal on such terms had two consequences: Gutfreund kept his post, and we, or rather, our shareholders, lost a lot of money. IN конечном итоге именно наши акционеры оплатили щедрое подношение Баффетту. To calculate exactly how much, the easiest way is to find the value of his bonds. Buffett paid the firm for them at face value, which is 100. I took a calculator and assumed (very conservatively) that Buffett could immediately resell them at 118. The difference between 118 and 100 is 18 percent, which Buffett gets completely automatically, for nothing. Сумма равна 126 миллионам dollars. Why, one wonders, should the shareholders of Salomon Brothers (and the employees, assuming that some of this money could go to us in the form of a bonus) pay to save a group of people who could no longer cope with the game? This was the first question that came to mind not only to me, but also to many of our directors.

For блага Salomon Brothers, объяснил Гутфренд. “I was shocked,” said Gutfreund about Perelman's intentions. “I never knew him, and Perelman is just a name to me, but I felt that the structure of Salomon Brothers in terms of our relationship with clients, their trust and reliability, would not be preserved if the firm fell into the hands of a corporate grabber.”

Except for the first three words, this whole statement sounds false from beginning to end. Let's start from the end. Our client relationships were not affected when South Africans showed up among the shareholders - why should they be hurt by the appearance of a raider? We will not discuss here the morality of apartheid or the takeover of corporations. But в самом малом случае нужно признать, что первое никак не лучше второго. And in our business, a connection with a corporate invader can even become useful. Raid-afraid corporations might even be pleased that we have