Biography
William D. Cohan is a contributing editor at Vanity Fair and writes frequently for Financial Times, Fortune, The Atlantic and The Washington ...
Naive study ignores that mergers and acquisitions are good
May 6, 2013
Normally, an academic study as inane as "M&A Confidential: What Happens When Deals Leak" would be dismissed for what it is: a blatant, lame attempt to gin up some public attention for its sponsors.
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Will new SEC hang whistle-blowers out to dry?
April 30, 2013
The Securities and Exchange Commission is certainly looking all spiffy and new these days.
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Plan to sell gun maker needs a background check
April 22, 2013
What with the terrorist attack in Boston, the deadly explosion at a fertilizer plant in Texas and the inane vote against gun control in the U.S. Senate, you may have missed the news late last week about Stephen Feinberg. The reclusive co-founder of the buyout firm Cerberus Capital Management LP is attempting one of his most daring and ill-conceived deals of all time: trying to buy Freedom Group Inc., one of the world's largest gun manufacturers, from his own company.
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Regulators follow golden road to Promontory
April 8, 2013
Mary Schapiro, the former chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission, must take us for fools.
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Mary Jo White's spin at SEC's revolving door
March 19, 2013
One of the oft-repeated justifications for why Wall Street must be regulated by Wall Streeters is that what goes on there is both so complex and so essential that only those who have been part of it can be trusted to oversee it.
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Goldman Sachs can also be Wall Street's moral leader
March 11, 2013
Goldman Sachs Group Inc.'s announcement that it will now bestow coveted managing director titles upon its rising vice presidents every two years, instead of annually, may have shaken the foundation at its New York headquarters. For the rest of the world, even the rest of Wall Street, nothing much will be different.
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Herbalife battle shows how the game is rigged
February 26, 2013
What are we to make of the ability of hedge-fund managers and other influential investors to manipulate the market with impunity and make millions of dollars doing it?
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Barclays' new morality, same old Wall Street
February 19, 2013
Is there suddenly a "new morality" on Wall Street? There is, if you believe Antony Jenkins, the chief executive officer of Barclays Plc.
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Benevolent Billionaires Can Buy Out Gunmaker
January 4, 2013
Business moguls who favor stricter gun-control laws -- among them Bloomberg LP founder and New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, financier George Soros and entertainment honcho David Geffen -- are in the unique position of being able to put their money where their mouths are, and with a single bold move can change the raging gun debate in a way that intransigent politicians cannot.
