The Biggest Game of All: The Inside Strategies, Tactics, and Temperaments that Make Great Dealmakers Great

From Publishers Weekly
Hindery, the CEO of the YES Network, the New York Yankees' cable channel, has handled some 250 deals in his 25-year career with considerable success. Along the way he's learned lessons like "do more homework than the other guy" and "read the fine print." His book is strongest when he conversationally writes of the deals he was part of, such as the YES Network's troubled creation ("So much dirt got hurled you could have built a new ballfield with it"). He addresses fundamental business issues, but often it's the personalities that drive these deals. Corporate politics are captivating so long as characters like George Steinbrenner are involved, and Hindery boldly names people who've crossed him in the past. He sorts brilliant deal makers from the merely competent by seeking some key qualities, including vision, chutzpah and moxie. Many name-brand CEOs make his list-John Malone, Gerald Levin, Sumner Redstone-but a few biggies are absent, including Bill Gates and Lee Iacocca. Although Hindery credits Gates's predictive powers, he's blunt about Gates's inability to pull off the big merger: "Let's be brutally honest here-the guy is no dealmaker." Although entertaining, Hindery's conclusions are sometimes questionable; many of his star deal makers have fallen from grace. (Gerald Levin was pushed out of AOL Time Warner, and former WorldCom CEO Bernard Ebbers led the company into bankruptcy.) Copyright 2002 Reed Business Information, Inc.


From Booklist
Hindery may not be a household name, but when it comes to the top deal makers in big media business, he is right up there with Rupert Murdoch (Fox), Sumner Redstone (Viacom), and Gerald Levin (AOL Time Warner). This former president and CEO of AT & T Broadband has, by his own count, negotiated more than 240 business deals in his career, totaling well in excess of $150 billion, and he has inside knowledge of many more. He describes some of these historical mergers and acquisitions in detail and reveals what motivates the deal makers, for better or worse, to compete in this power-driven and often addictive game. Although he claims to reveal no secrets on how to come up a winner, his "Ten Commandments" of deal making provide a glimpse into what it takes to stand one's ground and compete with the big boys. Hindery brings drama to these stories, whether they are home runs or utter failures, and unless he's hiding behind his poker face, he comes off as a very fair player. David Siegfried
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved


Review
Howard StringerChairman & CEO, Sony Corporation of AmericaThe roaring nineties for American business are over. The deals are done and the debris is settling. Who won? Who lost? Leo Hindery knows and he's telling. His insider's insights and his survivor's savoir faire make this a riveting and revealing read.


Book Description
Do you make deals? Do you want to learn how the best dealmakers in the world do it? Everyone -- and certainly every business -- makes deals. Whether you are an automobile dealer negotiating to buy another, or Exxon merging with Mobil in a $76 billion transaction, the craft of dealmaking is everywhere. And like any craft, dealmaking has its apprentices, its journeymen...and its masters. Leo Hindery, Jr., is one of those masters of the negotiating table -- a man who has steered home more than 240 business deals over the last twenty-five years, deals worth well in excess of $150 billion. In The Biggest Game of All, he brings readers inside the rooms where he has worked his wizardry, sometimes in partnership with, and sometimes against, the best dealmaking businessmen of our time, including General Electric's Jack Welch, Jerry Levin of AOL Time Warner, TCI's John Malone, George Steinbrenner, Barry Diller, and Rupert Murdoch. Through detailed narratives of the key moments in some of the biggest deals of our time -- including AT&T's $60 billion purchase of the cable giant MediaOne, the $54 billion sale of TeleCommunications, Inc. (a deal done in only twelve days), and the USA Networks/Seagram swap -- The Biggest Game of All is a true master class in dealmaking, showing all the inside strategies, tactics, and temperaments that make great dealmakers great. And at the center of the master class are Leo Hindery's ten commandments of dealmaking: #1. Do more homework than the other guy. #2. Look before you leap to the altar. You may love him, but you can't change him. #3. Deals should be done as fast as possible...but no faster. #4. Remember that you are only as good as the women and men around you. (And so is the other guy.) #5. Learn how to walk away. #6. Have adversaries, if need be. But don't have enemies. #7. Read the fine print. #8. Don't keep score on things that don't matter. #9. Hang in there. #10. Learn to keep your mouth shut. Leo Hindery's vantage point from the very peak of the dealmaking pyramid is the ideal place to observe, and therefore to understand, what separates good deals -- those intended to improve a company's strategic prospects -- from bad. At a time when the costs of business decisions made out of fear, confusion, and greed have never been higher or more newsworthy, knowing good from bad might be the most important dealmaking skill of all. No one who reads this insider's look at the incredible speed with which these human calculators make billion- dollar decisions, and at their fundamental, almost intuitive understanding of their own and other enterprises, will look at American business the same way again. The Biggest Game of All is that rarest of business books, instructive, enlightening, and just plain fun...a ringside seat at the real World Series of Poker, where the chips are worth a billion dollars each.


About the Author
Leo Hindery, Jr., is one of the most successful and colorful dealmakers in America today. He is the former chief executive of cable giant TeleCommunications Inc. (TCI), AT&T Broadband, and Wall Street darling Global Crossing, Inc., which he left well before its 2002 bankruptcy. Currently chairman and CEO of the YES regional sports broadcasting network, he lives in New York.


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Hindery, the CEO of the YES Network, the New York Yankees' cable channel, has handled some 250 deals in his 25-year career with considerable success. Along the way he's learned lessons like "do more homework than the other guy" and "read the fine print." His book is strongest when he conversationally writes of the deals he was part of, such as the YES Network's troubled creation ("So much dirt got hurled you could have built a new ballfield with it"). He addresses fundamental business issues, but often it's the personalities that drive these deals. Corporate politics are captivating so long as characters like George Steinbrenner are involved, and Hindery boldly names people who've crossed him in the past. He sorts brilliant deal makers from the merely competent by seeking some key qualities, including vision, chutzpah and moxie. Many name-brand CEOs make his list-John Malone, Gerald Levin, Sumner Redstone-but a few biggies are absent, including Bill Gates and Lee Iacocca. Although Hindery credits Gates's predictive powers, he's blunt about Gates's inability to pull off the big merger: "Let's be brutally honest here-the guy is no dealmaker." Although entertaining, Hindery's conclusions are sometimes questionable; many of his star deal makers have fallen from grace. (Gerald Levin was pushed out of AOL Time Warner, and former WorldCom CEO Bernard Ebbers led the company into bankruptcy.) (Feb. 3)


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