It isn't my practice to comment on books while I have not finished them, I am deviating this time. I started reading Cold Steel byTim Bouquet & Byron Ousey early this week. At end of 100 pages (out of a total of 323 ) some observations:
- This book is about personalities, and personalities.
- Expect no great business insight, this book is general reading.
- Ergo, if you hate business books and like general reading, go ahead and buy a copy.
- The book is like an extremely long event report, language will make you feel you are reading a newspaper at bedtime.
- The Arcelor management have been characterized from the beginning as irrational, insecure, somewhat immature. The authors have started this book with a certain mindset, which cannot be termed as fully balanced. And of course, as you would expect, Mittals family members and Mittal employees have been shown as competent and temperamentally very controlled.
- Have no illusion, this book is only about the Arcelor and Mittal Steel merger, nothing more.
Lakshmi Mittal looked at his watch. He had just flown with Aditya in his helicopter from Bettersea heliport to catch his private jet. It would be mid-afternoon in New York. He pressed out the numbers on his phone and waited for Lloyd Blankfein, the president and chief operating officer of Goldmman Sachs Group, one of the largest global investment banks, to take his call.
'I would like Goldman's to be my lead advisers on a major takeover transaction by Mittal Steel', he explained.
'Lakshmi, a pleasure,' Blankfein replied from his office at 85 Broad Street, Lower Manhattan....
Wow!
Updated: Here's my detailed post after I finished reading The Cold Steel.
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