Power Struggle

GREED AND GLORY ON WALL STREET

The distress sale of Lehman Brothers to a subsidiary of American Express in May 1984 ended the independence of a private investment banking house that lad been in existence since 1850. The final reckoning yielded Lehman's 72 partners sums ranging from nearly $ 1 million for the most junior to $10 million-plus for the top echelon. This gilded dissolution followed months of infighting that had effectively deposed two chief executives of the firm. The first was a former Nixon Cabinet member with a Greek immigrant background but Wasp manners and connections; the other was a company insider who throughout his life,...

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