The year they sold Wall Street

In an expose of Wall Street dealings, Wall Street Journal reporter Carrington focuses on the merger of the securities firm Shearson Loeb Rhoades and American Express as he recounts how, in 1981, this transaction and the takeovers of three other of the largest security houses by outside corporations transformed the traditional brokerage and banking community. The ShearsonAmerican Express merger, arranged by maverick financier Sandy Lewis, was intended to combine the usually separate financial services of depositing and saving, spending and investing. The complex story of how Lewis brought about the takeover is dramatically portrayed as are the contrasts in character and careers of the principals involvedLewis himself, Sanford Weill, the highly successful, streetwise entrepreneur and CEO of Shearson, and James Robinson, a "polished corporate statesman," head of prestigious American Express. With the breaching of this separate identity, Carrington declares, Wall Street began a new era.