Book Review: Gods at War

We’ve been reading a review copy of Steven Davidoff’s Gods at War: Shotgun Takeovers, Government by Deal, and the Private Equity Implosion. Regular readers of this site will recognize Davidoff as The New York Times’s “Deal Professor” – we’ve linked to the former Shearman & Sterling lawyer’s stories many times in the past.

In this book, he gives extended treatment to all of the trends and major transactions in recent corporate dealmaking.

Our review, after the jump.

Not too long ago, we recommended five books every deal lawyer should read. We’re happy to report that Gods at War should be added to the list.

The book spiritually picks up where Wasserstein’s Big Deal: Mergers and Acquisitions in the Digital Age leaves off. Wasserstein identified four eras of dealmaking (railroads in the 19th century; the Roaring 20s; conglomerate-building in the 1970s; and LBO-fueled hostile takeovers in the 1980s) then touched on the “digital era.” Davidoff has the benefit of touching on the digital era from a later perspective, after the dot-com bubble burst, and is able to recognize and address the flagrant overpayment based on minimal, or even negative, revenues.

Davidoff, too, starts off with the rough-and-tumble (literally – people were shooting cannons at each other) days of 19th century railroad takeovers, but he quickly jumps ahead to the slightly more-civilized present. This book focuses mostly on the rise of private equity and hedge funds over the past five or so years. While both have obviously been around for a lot longer, PE and hedge funds have had a profound effect for two separate but related reasons: PE funds have had more cash to do deals than ever before – certainly more than strategic buyers; and hedge funds have become increasingly activist, with creative new ways of agitating.

The book really shines in making the deal stories personal. Davidoff provides great detail and insight on who the people are, their motivations, and how that ultimately shapes the deal. Not only does he describe the principals’ motives and motivations, he provides backstory on the lawyers and other advisors on the transactions.

We highly recommend this book both to practitioners and to novices.  It provides keen insight into the people and companies that have been the driving force behind the corporate transactions that are shaping (for better or worse) the current economic climate.

The book is available today, and Davidoff has posted an excerpt from a chapter in his Deal Professor column this week.

Related posts:

1. Deal Professor’s Year in Review
2. Reading List for Deal Lawyers
3. Quick Shucks – 1/4/10
4. Madoff Bumps Dreier from Throne
5. The Law Shucks Mid-Year Layoff Review