They amassed unimaginable fortunes and would stop at nothing to make a deal, until their titanic egos started to jeopardize everything. This is the astonishing story of Lazard Fre`res, the world’s most elite and legendary investment bank – and the men who reigned over it all.

For over 150 years Lazard Fre`res had stood apart from other Wall Street firms by offering ultra-wealthy clients the wisdom of its ‘Great Men’: from Felix Rohatyn, the escapee from Nazi-occupied France turned financial genius, to Michel David-Weill, the inscrutable French billionaire ‘Sun King’; from Steve Rattner, the boy wonder from Long Island who clashed violently with the old guard, to larger-than-life CEO Bruce Wasserstein, ‘Bid-Em-Up Bruce’, who broke with the bank’s traditions and made himself billions in the process.

In The Last Tycoons William Cohan, himself a former high-level Wall Street banker, takes us into their mysterious and secretive world, telling a story of ruthless ambition, whispered advice, explosive feuds, glamorous mistresses, decadent excesses and unimaginable wealth.