March 2008

I have never read a book like this: finishing up the 500 pages in two days. I did nothing else during this weekend but fixated on Sandy Weill's extraordinary journey in his 50-years career.

I vaguely remembered from Roger Lowenstein's The Fall of Genius mentioning this character who struck maga deals with the Traveler's Group. Lowenstein did not paint a nice picture of Weill. I cannot recall the exact word, but I walked away with the impression that this person was deceitful (by underwriting a deal for a fraudulent wheat futures company) and was good at manipulating people.

I was not sure Weill is that character until I reached to his account of the futures company, and his joining American Express and subsequent leave. At that point, I began relating past readings to this book. Because of the negative impression from that previous book, I found it hard to take Weill's account of events at face value. Yet, the book drew me like a magnet and I could not help marveling (and admiring) Weill's unbelievable journal in deal-making.

Sandy Weill is the acquisition King. He excels at the ant-eats-elephant deals that allow companies to hop up the food-chain in giant strides. He utilized this strategy to rise from an unknown small firm to the absolute top of the American corpratocracy – two times over. That was beyond luck.

There were many takeaways from the book. The most memorable was the boardroom drama. Page 138 was one great example. Weill's account provided possibly a truthful picture on how the biggest companies were run, how power struggle took place on the executives level and how information was channeled to the public.

The book also provided a peek into the lifestyle of big public companies' executives: the world of resorts, golf tournaments, private jets and secretive dinner meetings.

As the King of acquisitions, Weill had plenty of advice for business people. At the end, he summarized three key criteria, two of which any successful merger has to meet. His execution excellence was inspiring too.

Published in 2006, the book came just before the credit bubble burst last year. Citigroup took the hardest hit as Weill's successor, Chuck Prince, has steered Citigroup deep into the complex structured securities business. I wonder what would Weill think of this outcome? Weill repeatedly claimed that he would not get into businesses that could not be explained in "plain English." His order to exist Solomon Brother's complicated arbitrage positions in late 1990s suggests would he had remained in Citigroup several years longer, the company might have entered a different fate today.

Well, as many coincident shaped Sandy Weill's fate, the same goes with Citigroup. But after a brief four years, the Citigroup as Weill left it is no longer recognizable.