It’s a story of betrayal, of backstabbing and greed, of Wall Street excess and of junk bonds, of corporate decimation and countless lives shattered by sackings, of asset stripping and exploitation and it epitomises the very worst of global corporate finance. It is also a story coming to a water tap near you very soon.
That epic 1989 book Barbarians at the Gate is not a tale of fantasy, it is in reality a first-hand account of the leveraged buyout of RJR Nabisco and its subsequent break up — it is also the tail of the rise of American investment firm KKR which has just been announced as the preferred bidder for Thames Water.
