Bruce Wasserstein and Vanity Fair

Buce Wasserstein, the chairman and CEO of the investment bank Lazard died six months agao. The May 2010 issue of VANITY FAIR has a story on Wasserstein by William Cohan, the author of a book about the history of Lazard.

It appears that Wasserstein was rushed to a hospital on Sunday, October 11, experiencing heart palpitations. According to Cohan's sources, he was put on life support immediately upon arrival, and the prognosis was always grim. It was "just a question of how long he would hang on," Cohan tells us. Death came that Wednesday, October 14.

Some of the people Wasserstein interviewed said this death was a shock, because their friend had seemed very healthy only recently. Toby Myerson said that he had seen Wasserstein at a birthday party four months before, and Wasserstein looked "healthy ... very engaged and engaging." Others, though, suggested that this was not such a surprise, because Wasserstein had been very sick (though closed-mouthed about it) for years. In February 2006, he disappeared from Lazard's offices, not returning until that May. When he did return, said an anonymous souyrce, "He was bruised all over his body. He looked like a guy who had been going through chemo or something."

Here's a link to the full story.

Two points stand out for me. One is simply that Wasserstein was (understandable) unhappy with the nickname that Forbes gave him in 1989, "Bid 'Em Up Bruce." The snap behind the nickname was that Wasserstein used "psychological bullying" to get his clients to 'win' auctions in the margers-and-acquisitions context by bidding more than made sense, more than they could really afford. Robert Campeau's 'victory' in a bidding war in which Wasserstein had advised him turned out to be especially pyrrhic.

The other, related, point is the ambiguity as to whether Wasserstein's last deal fit that bad old pattern. He advised Kraft in the early steps that led to its purchase of Cadbury. Cohan quotes Antonio Weis, head of investment banking at Lazard, who spoke up for his deceased boss on this point. "Bruce's last deal was specifically designed to acquire the target company at the lowest possible price. So it was the exact oppositre of what is alleged."

Bruce Wasserstein, RIP.