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Library | Item Barcode | Call Number | Material Type | Item Category 1 | Status |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
Searching... | 30000010158346 | HC441 S78 2007 | Open Access Book | Book | Searching... |
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Summary
Summary
Few groups are more secretive than the Asian "godfathers," the tiny group of obscenely wealthy businessmen who control the economic fates of Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand, Indonesia, Hong Kong, and the Philippines. Mysterious, shrewd, and ruthless, these tycoons represented eight of the twenty-five wealthiest people on the planet in the 1990s and they continue to command multibillion-dollar personal fortunes, controlling everything from banking and real estate to shipping and gambling--yet their names would not be familiar to regular readers of The Wall Street Journal . Who are they and how do they do it? That is the question Joe Studwell, author of the acclaimed book The China Dream , answers in this incisive behind-the-scenes exploration of the outsize figures behind the veil. Studwell has spent fifteen years as a reporter in the region and uses his unprecedented access to paint intimate and revealing portraits of the godfathers--who they really are and how they make, build, and maintain their fortunes. Asian Godfathers is an explosive book that lifts the curtain on a world of staggering secrecy and hypocrisy and reveals--for the first time--who the leaders of one of the world's most important and tumultuous markets really are.
Table of Contents
Maps | p. viii |
Introduction | p. xi |
Author's note | p. xxvii |
Part I Godfathers of yore | |
1 The context | p. 1 |
Part II How to be a post-war godfather | |
2 How to be a godfather, #1: Get in character | p. 43 |
3 How to be a godfather, #2: Core cash flow | p. 65 |
4 How to be a godfather, #3: Structuring an organisation - chief slaves and gweilo running dogs | p. 83 |
5 How to be a godfather, #4: Banks, piggy banks and the joy of capital markets | p. 94 |
Part III Godfathers today: Defending the precious | |
6 The 1990s: Ecstasy and reckoning | p. 125 |
7 Finale: The politics, stupid | p. 175 |
Notes | p. 199 |
Cast of characters | p. 241 |
Selected bibliography | p. 290 |
Appendix | p. 299 |
Acknowledgements | p. 302 |
Index | p. 304 |