Drexel Burnham Lambert pay record fine

Historical Context Note

Lucas Paul Richert (University of Saskatchewan)

The Literary Encyclopedia. Volume 3.2.4: American (US) Writing and Culture: Postwar and Contemporary, 1945-present.
Vol. editors: Sofia Ahlberg (Uppsala University), Patrick Chura (University of Akron), Emory Elliott (University of California, Riverside), Dale Enggass (University of Utah), Christopher Hugh Gair (University of Glasgow), Matthew Hofer (University of New Mexico), Stephen E. Meats (Pittsburg State University), Kerry Myler (Birmingham Newman University), Justin Parks (UiT - The Arctic University of Norway), Nick Selby (University of East Anglia)

Domains

Economics, Commerce & Industry

Dates

Date of occurrence 1988-12-21

Places

United States (Location)

Resources

Save to Bookshelf

Drexel Burnham Lambert, a brokerage house, agreed on 21 December to plead guilty to 6 violations of federal law, including insider trading, and pay penalties of $650 million, the largest such settlement ever. During the heady 1980s, Drexel Burnham Lambert (under the leadership of ‘junk bond’ guru Michael Milken) established itself as one of Wall Street’s key players. Amid this climate, Milken was able to raise large sums of capital by floating junk bonds that enabled ‘corporate raiders’ to engage in corporate mergers, hostile takeovers, acquisitions, and leverage buy-outs. This period on Wall Street was called ‘merger mania’. Drexel Burnham capitalized on and contributed to this climate. In 1986, however, Ivan Boesky (a Drexel client and leading corporate raider) was…

Please log in to consult the article in its entirety. If you are a member (student of staff) of a subscribing institution (see List), you should be able to access the LE on campus directly (without the need to log in), and off-campus either via the institutional log in we offer, or via your institution's remote access facilities, or by creating a personal user account with your institutional email address. If you are not a member of a subscribing institution, you will need to purchase a personal subscription. For more information on how to subscribe as an individual user, please see under Individual Subcriptions.

153 words

Citation: Richert, Lucas Paul. "Drexel Burnham Lambert pay record fine". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 01 November 2008 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/stopics.php?rec=true&UID=5731, accessed 07 May 2024.]

Save this article