Predators Ball II

Maria Bartiromo says it is the most powerful group of business folk in the world, and she's right.

This article is a good example of the movies and book on your review list.  The article concerns Mike Milken's Global Investment Conference.  This tenth annual event has gathered the most powerful hedge fund managers in the business.  Now consider the cast of characters.

This is the Mike Milken that used to run Drexel Burnham's junk bond desk.  That would be the junk bond empire that allowed Boone Pickens et al to terrorize oil companies into green mailing them to go away.

That would be the Mike Milken that foolishly rejected a misdemeanor charge and ended up going to jail for two felonies, courtesy of the federal prosecutor at the time, one Rudy Guliani, later NYC mayor and now Presidential candidate. By the way, they are good friends now.

The details of Milken are in Den of Theives and the movie Wall Street was based on that story.

The KKR RJR Nabisco deal mentioned in the story is the plotline for Barbarians at the Gates.

Milken made some $500 M personally his last year at Drexel, gee, guess who is back at the center of the investment world. 

Comments

[Matthew Moore]

Mike Milkens Global Conference. There is really such a conference? After what the guy did in the securities industry and now he is out there teaching other hedge fund managers how to succeed. How can a man that succeeded only by unethical and illegal practice teach a group of investors to succeed the "right" way, when he knows no different. The man was charged with 98 counts of fraud and racketeering, but pleaded guilty to six lesser securities and fraud violations including:

1. He planned or thought to engage in a series of unlawful security transactions.
2. He engaged in tax fraud. The charge relates to Ivan Boesky’s false 13-d statement.
3. He advised Ivan Boesky to buy MCA stock in order to hide the fact that Milken's client Golden Nugget Companies was selling MCA, and to assure him no loss in a sale to Drexel.
4. He helped a client reduce his income tax liability by selling the client two investments and then buying them back at a lower price.
5. He failed to make a written disclosure of an agreed-upon adjustment in transaction prices between Drexel and a client.

And like Dr. Elam said, this man is back at the center of the investment world.

[Dennis Elam]

GREAT POST MATT! Looks like you have read Den of Theives. Milken has been working on getting back into the investment world, He I understand is prohibited form dealing himselft but as I recall and you note he has run afoul of the law already since his prison release. He has however cultivated powerful friends and in fact is now good friends with his prosecutor, Rudy G! I think he will appear as a sponsor claiming he is not personally involved. He does run a large charitable foundation in his own name. What was that old saying about cats not losing their stripes?

[Jason Raper]

You would think that there would be laws preventing the exposure of a criminal back into the realm of his crime! I would like to read the book though. It sounds interesting.

[Matthew Moore]

Here is a website link to everything you want to know about Mike Milken, excluding his legal matters...lol... I was reading about his finance career and it talked about all the "good" he did while working in Wall Street and nothing to the effect that this man was found guilty in security fraud... I guess thats the advantage about creating your own site... Thought this site might be of interest.

http://www.mikemilken.com/index.taf

[Dennis Elam]

Reading Den of Theives is a finance course in itself. One student in Kingsville that read it commneted that it would make a good course and on reflection I agree. All of the manipulation and instide trading is exposed in a great whodunit style. James B. Stewart won a Pulitzer for this non fiction that reads like a fiction thriller. The first half is financial on creating the scam/ruse, the second is legal on how Drexel and Milken were brought down.