ApexNews
Return to Main
Book

The Caesars Palace Coup: How a Billionaire Brawl Over the Famous Casino Exposed the Power and Greed of Wall Street

2021

Purchase on Amazon

Synopsis

In the tradition of Barbarians at the Gate and The Big Short comes the riveting, multi-dimensional poker game between private equity firms and distressed debt hedge funds that played out from the Vegas Strip to Manhattan boardrooms to Chicago courthouses and even, for a moment, the halls of the United States Congress. On one side: Apollo Global Management and TPG Capital. On the other: the likes of Elliott Management, Oaktree Capital, and Appaloosa Management.

The Caesars bankruptcy put a twist on the old-fashioned casino heist. Through a $27 billion leveraged buyout and a dizzying string of financial engineering transactions, Apollo and TPG―in the midst of the post-Great Recession slump―had seemingly snatched every prime asset of the company from creditors, with the notable exception of Caesars Palace. But Caesars’ hedge fund lenders and bondholders had scooped up the company’s paper for nickels and dimes. And with their own armies of lawyers and bankers, they were ready to do everything necessary to take back what they believed was theirs―if they could just stop their own infighting.

These modern financiers now dominate the scene in Corporate America as their fight-to-the-death mentality continues to shock workers, politicians, and broader society―and even each other.

In The Caesars Palace Coup, financial journalists Max Frumes and Sujeet Indap illuminate the brutal tactics of distressed debt mavens―vultures, as they are condemned―in the sale and purchase of even the biggest companies in the world with billions of dollars hanging in the balance.

Suggested Reading

True Greed: What Happened in the Battle for RJR Nabisco

Hope Lambert’s True Greed offers a meticulously detailed account of the 1988 leveraged buyout of RJR Nabisco, a landmark event that remains a definitive symbol of Wall Street’s excesses during the late 1980s. The narrative centers on the ambition of F. Ross Johnson, the flamboyant CEO of RJR Nabisco...

Purchase on Amazon View Details

Blood of the Caesars: How the Murder of Germanicus Led to the Fall of Rome

It was an unfitting death for any Roman soldier. For the empire's greatest hero—a brilliant thirty-three-year-old general, fierce warrior, and gifted diplomat, beloved by the people and in line to become the third emperor—to die in his bed, after suffering weeks of agony, was more than a shock: it w...

View Details

We use cookies to improve your experience on our website. By continuing to browse, you accept our Cookie Policy and Privacy Policy.