Infectious Greed: How Deceit and Risk Corrupted the Financial Markets

by Frank Partnoy (Author)

• Used

  Paperback
  2004

  $3.25

  From the author of the best-selling F.I.A.S.C.O. , a riveting chronicle of the terrifying rise of financial skulduggery and the damage it is doing. F.I.A.S.C.O. was 'Blood in the Water on Wall Street', this is blood and guts everywhere. Like a virus infecting the very heart of our financial markets, our greed-driven culture has led to the generation of massive profits, but alongside this have come new levels of risk, widespread deception and high profile disasters such as Barings Bank, Enron and Worldcom. Confidence in corporate accounts and standards of behavior has been destroyed and our global financial system has reached a perilous crossroads. Partnoy brings to bear his skills and experience as a securities attorney, financial analyst and law professor to demonstrate how many companies have obscured the real picture from shareholders by disguising risk and side-stepping regulations. Beginning in the mid-1980s with the introduction of the first proto-derivatives, Partnoy gives an intelligent and thorough account of the dangerous manipulations that have and continue to come to light. Blind faith in the financial system is no longer sufficient, but mercifully Partnoy offers a clear vision of the route back from the precipice. 'Partnoy's account of what happened within these companies will send a shiver down the spine of anyone with a humble investment in a unit or investment trust' - Bill Jamieson, The Scotsman .

• Used

  Hardcover
  2003

  $3.25

  Enron was an energy trading company. Its business model was hailed as revolutionary. Analysts were unanimous in recommending investors to buy Enron shares. The share price soared to 1,990 dollars in April 2001. Eight months later it all fell apart. It transpired that Enron's accounts were disguised by a raft of off-balance sheet items; that the company had been up to its neck in trading derivatives of such Byzantine complexity that almost no-one understood them; that Enron's top management had made fortunes by selling shares when the price was sky high and when they knew that the company was in danger; and that Enron had spent millions buying political favours in every country it operated. Enron's nasty smell pervaded Congress and reached the Oval office, and the collapse of the company hit banks, pension funds and private investors around the world. But what Enron had been doing was no different to what many companies - aided by their auditors - do all the time, what they put on their balance sheet and what they hide off it, and how they exploit unfathomable derivatives.