Morgan Stanley

"But most importantly, on that same day, Domenico De Sole pulled an incredible rabbit out of his hat. Gucci announced the immediate issuance of 20 million new shares, exclusively reserved for employees, which reduced LVMH's stake from 34.4% to 25.6%! Called ESOP (Employee Stock Ownership Plan), this "employee share ownership plan" is a diabolical invention that uses the inexhaustible resources of Dutch corporate law to prevent LVMH from imposing its views without taking majority control of Gucci. Michel Zaoui, head of mergers and acquisitions in Europe for Morgan Stanley (the advisory bank for Guinness against Bernard Arnault), came up with the idea."

"Time is running out. Domenico De Sole and Michel Zaoui from Morgan Stanley know how fragile the more or less fictitious allocation of shares to employees is, which reduces LVMH's stake in Gucci from 34.4% to 25.6%."

"In the early eighties, I’d begun collecting relationships. For instance, I reached out to Felix Rohatyn, the Lazard Frères banker who had almost single-handedly rescued New York City from bankruptcy in the seventies, and who was on the board of MCA and had Lew Wasserman’s ear. I called and asked to see him, saying, “I need no more than ten minutes of your time.” On my next trip to New York, I went to his office, shook hands, and placed my watch on his desk. Then I said, “I’d love to talk to you about how you saved New York, and also how you advise Lew—to learn from the Dean. And I’d love to be helpful to you in L.A. in any way I can.” All to get him talking and to show that I knew what he’d done and that I admired it and wanted to learn from it. After ten minutes, I said, “Thanks so much,” and stood to pick up my watch. Felix—and everyone else I used this stratagem on—asked me to sit back down. In this way I got to know Herb Allen, the head of Allen & Co., and Bob Greenhill at Morgan Stanley, and I’d always drop in on them when I was in New York—as well as on Mort Janklow and fifteen other book agents, a number of figures in the art world, and our clients Meryl Streep, Mike Nichols, Al Pacino, Sidney Lumet, Bob De Niro, and Marty Scorsese. The relationships outside entertainment would prove useful to CAA in the plans I was beginning to develop. They’d be our bridges to a wider world."

"In the afternoon we met with finance, sales, marketing, and research. At 5:30, closing time, Hirata took me aside and said, “I want to show you something.” Leaving his translator behind, he led me up to the executive floor. We passed down a long corridor to a locked door, which opened into a room the size of a walk-in closet. Hirata pointed to the stacked, plastic-bound volumes on the floor. I picked up one from Morgan Stanley, a signed letter from the head of its investment-banking division clipped to its cover. There were dozens more like it, multiple copies of proposal books from the top investment banks in New York, London, Paris, and Frankfurt. The letters asked for the privilege of guiding Matsushita through the wilds of the movie business. They listed their services, each one with a fee. They charged for everything but continental breakfast. Hirata’s smile grew wider as I leafed through them, and I understood: CAA was the only one to forgo a fee letter. In all our dealings in Japan we never had a written contract. Our attitude was, We know you will do the honorable thing. For an old-fashioned businessman like Hirata, that gesture was definitive. Despite his limited English and my nonexistent Japanese, we were going to trust each other."

"With investors suitably wooed, Musk huddled with his bankers on a call to discuss what they’d price Tesla’s stock at. The bankers recommend starting at $15 a share. Said Musk: “No. Higher.” Goldberg hadn’t been doing IPOs for very long but in his three years at it, he’d never seen any CEO push back on price like that. After all, these bankers from Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley were the experts. Now the experts were stunned. They muted their phones, filling their side of the conversation with profanity as they debated their next steps. Who the fuck does he think he is? Who here can convince him otherwise? Is this whole thing going to fail? Is it too late to pull out? In the end, they had gone too far to back down. Musk had them over a barrel, and after watching him for months as he pushed back against custom, they knew it was well within his MO to walk away if he didn’t get what he wanted on arguably the most important part of the IPO—the decision that would impact how much money Tesla took away from the arrangement."

"In a classic confrontation over Icahn’s hostile bid for Phillips Petro¬ leum, Morgan Stanley investment banker Joe Fogg declared the proposal preposterous. “What the hell do you know about the oil business?” he de¬ manded to know. “You don’t understand, Joe,” Icahn calmly replied. “I’m not here for an interview.”9"

""Morgan Stanley type," an (A.G.) "Becker person," a "KL-er" (Kuhn Loeb),"

"in the 1970s, this unwritten “social contract” was ripped up by Morgan Stanley. This quintessential “establishment” investment house made a hostile bid on behalf of International Nickel, one of its longtime clients, for a battery maker. In the aftermath, all the old-line houses—with the exception of Goldman Sachs—followed. The rules had changed. And they had for us, too, at Lazard, at least somewhat. But I personally did not care for hostile takeovers, and would participate in such an activity solely on the behalf of a large, well-financed, longtime client of the firm and only after exploring all other possible alternatives. In a financial lifetime that included several hundred transactions, less than half a dozen of my deals involved my representing hostile bidders."

"Bob Greenhill of Morgan Stanley, the late Bruce Wasserstein of First Boston, the late Jim Glanville of Lehman Brothers, Marty Siegel of Kidder, Peabody—all would make celebrated, hard-driving deals, and fortunes for themselves and their firms."

"Then he moved on to a management position at Morgan Stanley, one of the toughest and best American investment banks. There, Halvorsen performed so well that he was headhunted by none other than Julian H. Robertson, the extremely wealthy and media-shy billionaire behind the feared Tiger funds. The young Norwegian moved into Tiger's fashionable premises and began investing huge amounts in cheap Norwegian stocks. Just on Storebrand, he earned more than a billion for his funds in a short time. And it was probably not just luck, as Andreas Halvorsen, as he refers to himself, is widely known for his detailed studies of the companies he invests in. And he is a feared visitor where he meticulously scrutinizes the management with inquisitive questions before deciding to invest a penny. This man met Kjell Inge Røkke in 1993, and Røkke wanted one thing; namely, to get Tiger as a supporter."