So a couple of nights ago I opened Money Games by Weijian Shan, and then found that I couldn't stop reading.
goodreads.com/book/show/5281
It is THAT good.
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My pitch: private equity is a huge part of the economy. In the US, there are more PE-controlled companies than there are public companies. But PE is not well understood.
Most books about PE are a) written by outsiders, and b) cover only the deal-making part of the transaction.
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The most famous of these is Barbarians at the Gate, written by two WSJ journalists a year after the RJR Nabisco deal. But what is unsaid in the book is that KKR exited that deal 15 years later, to a loss of $730 million.
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Weijian Shan's Money Games is the story of one private equity transaction, told from origination to exit. Shan was one of the main characters in the deal, and is today the head of PAG, a major Asia-focused PE fund.
It is an absolutely thrilling read.
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My favourite cameo: our man, Masayoshi Son.
(Who exited the transaction a few years later, because apparently he didn't have diamond hands? Oh well.)
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I think Shan does a fantastic job explaining the inner workings of PE. But this deal *is* unusual:
1) it was partially 'funded' by the Korean government
2) 70% of the book was about bridging the gap with the gov, who had no idea what PE even was
3) negotiations were crazy.