Lazard and Wasserstein: investment banking dramas come together

Lazard-Freres is a quintessential investment banking house, sprung out of one of the great financial families of the 19th century. Bruce Wasserstein, conversely, is one of the quintessential investment banking machers of the 1980s and ’90s. Landon Thomas Jr., writing in the New York Observer, looks at the prospects as they come together. Stylistic clashes aside, can Wasserstein, never known as a people person, put back together three feuding offices in a firm which succeeded because of its people and not its financial muscle? Can he even reach back to the successes he had convincing CEOs they needed him because no matter what room Wasserstein was in he is always the smartest person in it? This article really connects with me, takes me back to the heady days in the ’80s when I would pick up a NY Times or WS Journal and read about another junk bond-fueled corporate acquisition, to the time when I wanted nothing more than to work on Wall Street.