New York, October 14, 2008 - Mohamed El-Erian today won the Financial Times and Goldman Sachs Business Book of the Year Award 2008 (http://www.ft.com/indepth/bookaward2008) for When Markets Collide: Investment Strategies for the Age of Global Economic Change, a timely alert to the fundamental changes taking place in today’s global economic and financial systems – and a call to action for investors who may fall victim to misinterpreting important signals, published by McGraw-Hill.
The Award was presented today at a Gala Dinner at the Plaza Hotel in New York by Lionel Barber, Editor of the Financial Times, and Lloyd C Blankfein, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Goldman Sachs. The keynote speaker was Samuel J. Palmisano, Chairman, CEO, and President of IBM. CNBC Anchor Maria Bartiromo co-hosted the evening.
Mohamed El-Erian saw off strong competition to pick up the £30,000 award, which was presented for the fourth year running and aims to find the book that provides ‘the most compelling and enjoyable insight into modern business issues.’ Each of the five runners-up also received a cheque for £5,000 and can expect a sharp upturn in sales of their books.
Lionel Barber, Editor of the Financial Times, said: “When Markets Collide brings together the world of modern finance and macro-economics. It is lucid and prescient in its diagnosis of the present financial turmoil and offers important prescriptions for the way forward. A worthy fourth winner for our annual book prize.”
Lloyd C. Blankfein, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, Goldman Sachs, said:
“Mohamed El-Erian provides invaluable context for the global financial crisis and does so in an extremely accessible and compelling way. When Markets Collide deserves to be this year’s winner.”
The judging panel for the 2008 Award was:
Lionel Barber, Editor, Financial Times
Lloyd C. Blankfein, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, The Goldman Sachs Group, Inc.
Professor Niall Ferguson, Academic, Author and Financial Historian
Mario Monti, President of Bocconi University, Milan and Former Competition Commissioner of the European Union
Helen Alexander, Senior Adviser, Bain Capital, Non-Executive Director of Rolls Royce and Centrica and Vice President CBI
Sung-Joo Kim, Chairperson & CEO of Sungjoo Group and MCM Group
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Financial Times
Lizzie Allen
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Darcy Keller
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Darcy.keller@ft.com
Goldman Sachs
Ed Canaday
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ed.canaday@gs.com
The Financial Times & Goldman Sachs Business Book of the Year Award 2008
Winner 2008
When Markets Collide: Investment Strategies for the Age of Global Economic Change
Mohamed El-Erian (McGraw-Hill)
When Markets Collide is a timely alert to the fundamental changes taking place in today’s global economic and financial systems--and a call to action for investors who may fall victim to misinterpreting important signals.
While some have tended to view asset class mispricings as mere “noise,” this compelling book shows why they are important signals of opportunities and risks that will shape the market for years to come. One of today’s most respected names in finance, Mohamed El-Erian puts recent events in their proper context, giving you the tools that can help you interpret the markets, benefit from global economic change, and navigate the risks.
Mohamed El-Erian is a co-CEO and co-CIO of PIMCO, one of the largest investment management companies in the world. He formerly served as president and CEO of Harvard Management company, the firm that manages the university’s $35 billion endowment. He spent 15 years at the International Money Fund, working on policy, capital market and multi lateral economic issues. In 2004, Fortune named him a member of its eight-person ‘Mutual Fund Dream Team’.
Shortlisted
A Splendid Exchange: How Trade Has Shaped the World from Prehistory to the Present
William Bernstein (Atlantic Books)
A Splendid Exchange tells the epic story of global commerce from its prehistoric origins to the myriad controversies surrounding it today. It transports readers from the sugar rush that brought the British to Jamaica in 1655 to the firestorm over globalization today, moving from the silk route between China and Rome in the second century to the rise and fall of the Portuguese monopoly in spices in the sixteenth. Along the way, Bernstein examines how our age-old dependency on trade has contributed to our planet’s agricultural bounty, stimulated intellectual and industrial progress and made us both prosperous and vulnerable.
William J. Bernstein is a financial theorist. He is known for his research in the field of Modern Portfolio Theory and for his self-help finance books for individual investors who wish to manage their own equity portfolios. Bernstein holds a Ph.D. in Chemistry and an M.D. in neurology; he practiced neurology until retiring from the field. He currently lives in Oregon, USA.
Cold Steel: The Multi-billion-dollar Battle for a Global Industry
Tim Bouquet & Byron Ousey (Little Brown Book Group)
In 2006, the two largest steel-producers went head to head in a bitter battle for total market domination. Lakshmi Mittal, a Calcutta-born industrialist who had raised himself up from humble beginnings to become the world’s fourth-richest man, proposes a friendly merger with rival Arcelor, a pan-European company whose interested parties include the governments of Spain, Luxembourg and Belgium. Arcelor’s mercurial CEO, Frenchman Guy Dolle, firmly refuses, and the scene is set for a massive hostile takeover involving billions of dollars of finance, government and shareholder manoeuvring, and accusations of jingoism and double-dealing. Fast-paced and electrifying, COLD STEEL brings to life the cut and thrust of big business at war.
Tim Bouquet is a journalist writer, editor, broadcaster and traveller who contributes to leading titles including the Telegraph Magazine and The Times Magazine. He wrote the first British magazine profile of Lakshimi Mittal for the Daily Telegraph Magazine, with the full cooperation of and access to the Mittal family and senior figures at Mittal Steel.
Byron Ousey is a managing director with Gavin Anderson, an international financial public relations consultancy that specialises in advising governments and major cooperations on takeovers and mergers. During the Mittal-Arcelor battle he advised the Luxembourg government on their communications strategy.
McMafia: Crime Without Frontiers
Misha Glenny (Random House)
The journey begins with an appalling and inexplicable murder in England’s stockbroker belt and continues with stories that are often horrifying, sometimes inspiring, usually bizarre and occasionally funny. But together they build a breathtaking picture of the shadow economy that has grown so fast that it may now account for about 20% of the world’s GDP.
Usually the preserve of sensationalist reporting in the tabloid press, organised crime has seeped into our lives in so many ways and often without our knowledge. This consistently riveting account unveils the nature of crime in today’s world but it also offers profound insights into the pitfalls of a globalisation where the rules dividing the legal from the illegal are often far from clear. McMafia unpicks the nexus of crime, politics and money worldwide which have become entangled and interdependent in entirely novel forms since the 1980s. It argues that conventional policing methods are no longer appropriate to deal with a problem whose roots lie in global poverty and the ever widening divisions between rich and poor.
Misha Glenny is a distinguished journalist and historian. As the Central Europe Correspondent, first for The Guardian and then for the BBC, he chronicled the collapse of communism and the wars in the former Yugoslavia. He has won several major awards for his work, including the Sony Gold Award for outstanding contribution to broadcasting. The author of three books on Eastern Europe and the Balkans, he has been regularly consulted by the US and European governments on major policy issues and ran an NGO for three years, assisting with the reconstruction of Serbia, Macedonia and Kosovo. He now lives in London.
Remix: Making Art and Commerce Thrive in the Hybrid Economy
Lawrence Lessig (Bloomsbury Academic)
A restrictive copyright system driven by corporate interests is harmful to our children and almost anyone who creates, enjoys, or sells any art form. For many, new technologies have made it irresistible to flout these unreasonable and ultimately untenable laws. Some of today’s most talented artists are felons, and so are our kids, who see no reason why they shouldn’t do what their computers and the Web let them do, from burning a copyrighted CD for a friend to “biting” riffs from films, videos, songs, etc and making new art from them.
Lessig suggests that by embracing “read-write culture,” which allows its users to create art as readily as they consume it, we can ensure that creators get the support—artistic, commercial, and ethical—that they deserve and need. He shows how we can and should use the new hybrid economy that combines the profit motives of traditional business with the “sharing economy” to benefit those who make and consume culture.
Lawrence Lessig is a Professor of Law at Stanford Law School and founder of the school’s Center for Internet and Society, and was previously the Berkman Professor of Law at Harvard Law School, and a Professor at the University of Chicago. He clerked for Judge Richard Posner on the 7th Circuit Court of Appeals and Justice Antonin Scalia on the United States Supreme Court
Professor Lessig is the author of Code v2 (2007), Free Culture (2004), The Future of Ideas (2001) and Code and Other Laws of Cyberspace (1999). He is on the board of the Creative Commons project, the boards of MAPLight and the Sunlight Foundation. He has served on the board of the Free Software Foundation, the Electronic Frontier Foundation, the Public Library of Science, and Public Knowledge. He was also a columnist for Wired, Red Herring, and the Industry Standard.
The Snowball: Warren Buffett and the Business of Life
Alice Schroeder (Bloomsbury Publishing)
“Life is like a snowball. The important thing is finding wet snow and a really long hill”. For the first time in his life, Warren Buffett opened his world, giving Alice Schroeder unprecedented access to himself, his files, friends and associates. This book provides never-before-published insight into his character and life, distilling the principles and philosophies that have guided him on a path to extraordinary success and esteem.
The Snowball presents the man behind the extraordinary success, leadership and philanthropy; a biography of his ideas, a perspective that can be applied to business and the day-to-day decisions that dominate our lives.
There have been many books written about Warren Buffett that purport to have the formula for his investment genius, but The Snowball is the first and only book written with Warren Buffett’s cooperation.
Author Alice Schroeder was a noted insurance industry analyst and writer who was a managing director at Morgan Stanley. Ms. Schroeder was born in Texas, and she earned an undergraduate degree and her MBA at the University of Texas at Austin before moving east to work in finance. She is a former CPA and lives in Connecticut with her husband.
Notes to editors:
The closing date for entries for The Financial Times and Goldman Sachs Business Book of the Year Award 2008, invited from publishers or bona fide imprints based in any country, was June 30, 2008. Details of the Terms and Conditions are available from www.ft.com/bookaward. This annual award aims to identify the book that provides the most compelling and enjoyable insight into modern business issues, including management, finance and economics.
About the Financial Times:
The Financial Times, one of the world’s leading business newspapers, is recognised internationally for its authority, integrity and accuracy. Providing extensive news, comment and analysis, the newspaper is printed at 24 print sites across the globe, has a daily circulation of 429 381 (ABC figures, September 2008) and a readership of 1.4 million people worldwide. FT.com is the definitive home for business intelligence on the web, providing an essential source of news, comment, data and analysis for the global business community. FT.com attracts 7.1 million unique users, generating 72 million page views (ABCe figures, March 2008).
About Goldman Sachs:
Goldman Sachs is a leading global investment banking, securities and investment management firm that provides a wide range of services worldwide to a substantial and diversified client base that includes corporations, financial institutions, governments and high net worth individuals. Founded in 1869, it is one of the oldest and largest investment banking firms. The firm is headquartered in New York and maintains offices in London, Frankfurt, Tokyo, Hong Kong and other major financial centers around the world.
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