As Head of the Distressed Convertible Bond Trading Desk, Lawrence G. McDonald was in a unique place in the Lehman Brothers organisation. A gimlet-eyed researcher, accustomed to making markets for the remaining assets of giants who had temporarily fallen on hard times, in 2004, at the age of 38, Larry McDonald became a Lehman Brothers Vice-President, a young Master of the Universe.
A cynic's cynic, a natural-born Bear, a financier trained to spot weakness, he was twice the leading Wall Street trader in his field. And he reported to a fellow spirit, the legendary Wall Street short-trader, Larry McCarthy, a lifelong friend with a towering reputation for being right, and a multi-million dollar salary, amply justified.
When the two Larrys hauled up a warning flag, that was a good time to pay attention. Together they were in the thick of the fight to save Lehman Brothers, railing at the Board, presenting incontrovertible evidence of the iceberg that loomed ahead.
The divide in the bank was so great, so polarized, McDonald and McCarthy alone were making tens of millions of dollars for the company, 'shorting' the bank's best customers (betting on their total failure) in the nation-wide scandal of the collapsed US housing and mortgage markets.
The position was both embarrassing and intolerable to the Board. McCarthy walked out in disgust. Right after that McDonald was paid off. The man who had blown the whistle on the forthcoming Lehman's disaster was heartbroken.
Larry McDonald has chosen the writer Patrick Robinson to recount his story. Enthralled by the gripping 2007 non-fiction Number One bestseller Lone Survivor, Number One on the New York Times list for several months, which Robinson wrote for the heroic US Navy SEAL Marcus Luttrell, McDonald ran the great wordsmith to ground at his home in Ireland.
Robinson has crafted a 13-chapter, 140,000-word page-turner which will turn this world-wide financial disaster into a thriller. It's a blow-by-blow account written from the heart of the action, detailing each and every step which took the world to the brink of financial ruin.
The book is rich in anecdote, mind-blowing in its insider's account and graphic in its portrayal of the principal characters.
As finance books go, this is one for the ages. It can be understood by anyone. And in a sense it's everyone's financial bible, a masterclass of when to apply common sense in the face of overwhelming Wall Street jargon.
|
|
|
