William Cohan’s portrait of Bruce Wasserstein in the latest Vanity Fair sheds a bit of light on the events surrounding the Lazard chairman’s mysterious death last October.
But one thing is clear: Most of the deceased dealmaker’s colleagues thought he was a selfish asshole who took home a giant paycheck without doing much to deserve it. Several Lazard partners even tried to stage a coup to oust Bruce and approached the board about his enormous pay package in 2008, Cohan reports. But the board eventually feared shareholder lawsuits if Bruce left and the stock dropped.
Here’s one Lazard banker’s take:
“The difference between his perception of his value and everybody else’s was a wide chasm. If you want to look at him in the best light, you would say he just had an incredible view of himself. If you want to look at him in the worst light, you would say he didn’t give a damn. He just could take the money. He could convince the board, and he took it.”
According to another former partner:
“[Bruce] was just given over to complete narcissism. He had lost his relevance. Nobody in corporate America particularly cared about what he had to say, and he wasn’t particularly good about saying it. Nine out of 10 things that came out of his mouth were crazy, or unfounded, or reflected a lack of attention to his audience and what their issues were. One out of 10 was smart, scary smart. But you’d take him to client meetings and most of the time you’d be exchanging looks with the C.E.O. of the company that you were taking him to see.” The message the clients delivered time and time again was a simple one: Don’t bring him back.
And another Lazard MD:
“If he generated $30 or $40 million worth of fees in the nine years he was at Lazard, he generated a lot. I mean, he was just useless.”
On the mystery surrounding Bruce’s sudden death, which has never been fully explained, Howard Rubenstein and Judi Mackey, Lazard’s public-relations head, told Vanity Fair:
“While in a car on his way to a lunch downtown with his daughter Pamela, Mr. Wasserstein experienced a sudden and unexpected cardiac arrhythmia. The arrhythmia caused him to lose consciousness. The driver called 911. Mr. Wasserstein was rushed in an ambulance to a hospital in Manhattan. His condition was initially stabilized in the hospital. Despite efforts at supportive care and indications of recovery, he ultimately died of heart failure secondary to the arrhythmia.”
Two words: Value.Add. (both Kouwe and Wasserstein)
YEA, THAT’S WHAT I THOUGHT, GOT NOTHING TO SAY FOR YOURSELF NOW, DO YOU MR. TOUGHGUY!
-Bitter Wuss / Lazard MDs
Oh Zack, you are so smart. Make me yours.
Zachary Kouwe is what the subprime in trouble.
Ok, that was mean, and I know I said I’d be nice for a few weeks so lemme break it down for ya, Zach, k?
This post is 422 words long, including sections attributed to VF. Yours account for 133, or a ~30% contribution to the total. Given your pockmarked recent employment history, I’d have thought you’d go out of your way to add more of your work and less of others.
Apparently I was wrong.
Good work on the tags, though, at least it looks like you’re making an effort there.
The name of the game is get to the top and pay yourself. Value add, ha!
$10 says his pre-pubescent wife did it.
@Anal not to pick nits but 2/3 of the names in the tags are misspelled.
@6
I was more alluding to Kouwe than Bruce but I mean, whatever.
@8
Ah, posted my comment in haste, word.
All you a$$holes get back to work! Can’t spend more than 10 seconds over dis guy.
@9/Anal:
Pick up your game, or I’ll summon The Thug.
@11 word
where’s the snark?
Malcolm McLaren – rest in peace
@13 in a tank of formaldenyde. doucnebag.
Zach atleast correct the tags after being called out by @8. Pretend you’re trying.
(No, blaming the guy you copy/pasted them from doesn’t count.)
Did Zachery Kouwe ever have any real friends?
or in Zach spelling, Ddi Zachry Kuwe ever hav ane reel freinds?
Bruce has recruited a lot of friends over time.
Zach,
That’s not a Baby Ruth on your desk.
-A.R. Sorkin
greggums michaels > kouwe boll
also, wass is a ringer for palpatine.
ole Aaron Sorkin, there’s that slapdick again
My kids were in nursery school with the children from his penultimate marriage,
He would come to class once a month, every month and read to the children. It’s more than I did.
Met him a few times. He was not perfect, but he was not an ogre. Having said that, his wife (the one I knew) would get more dinner invitations from friends when he was out of town on business.
It’s easy to kick dirt on a grave. FWIW, he did create value.
22 knows what’s up.
who cares…literally, a sleezebag discarded bass player one upped by heroin junkie bass player leaves more of a legacy than some dbag m&a sheister whore
Wasserstein probably thought he deserved the big pay cheque because he took out Michel David-Weill and IPO’ed Lazard and made all the Lazard partners rich. He probably complained he didn’t get the cheque sooner because of Lazard’s weak financial position immediately after the IPO.
No one else could have shift David-Weill without destroying the firm. So in that sense, yes, I think “Bid’em Up Bruce” deserved the big pay cheque.
The pre-Wasserstein era partners probably thought their shareholdings and profit share got diluted significantly since his arrival because Bruce brought in his old gang from Wasseralla and Dresdner. If you asked me, this was the killer move that toppled David-Weill. But what I found most interesting at the time was many purported David-Weill Paris Loyalist partners supported Wasserstein when the vote for IPO was called.
Bruce also had most of the directors in his pocket anyway. He appointed most of them. So call it a corporate governance conflict if you like.