Marquis James and Bessie Rowland James, 1954
The Story of Bank of America: Biography of a Bank
A bank built on the customers every other bank had already turned down.
Marquis James won the Pulitzer twice. This one is almost never read.
Lorenzo Ayres / 1 min
Every new piece I write, sent to your inbox.
A.P. Giannini opened the Bank of Italy in San Francisco in 1904 and lent to immigrants, small farmers and working people that the established banks would not deal with, and that institution became Bank of America.
The version of this story that gets told is a nice one about a man helping people nobody else would help. The version in the book is more interesting, because those customers were not a charity, they were an underpriced market that everybody else had written off without doing the work to price it properly.
That is the same argument I make about our own guest, and I did not get it from this book, but reading it in a 1904 form made me much more confident it generalises.
no better security than the calluses on the borrower's hands
The newsletter. That is the whole ask.
Every new piece I write, sent to your inbox.
Structure it
- Mark Stevens, 1993King IcahnThe structuring playbook, written by somebody Icahn was not cooperating with.
- Jeff Gramm, 2016Dear ChairmanEight fights between shareholders and boards, told through the actual letters.
- Bryan Burrough and John Helyar, 1989Barbarians at the GateThe best book on how a deal actually gets done, disguised as a story about a cigarette company.
Deals and structure
- Buy Then BuildWalker Deibel, 2018
- The Art of M&AAlexandra Reed Lajoux and Stanley Foster Reed, 1989
- Distant ForceGeorge A. Roberts, 2007
- Rising To Power: Paul Desmarais and Power CorporationDave Greber, 1987
- The Joy of Achievement: Conversations with J.R.D. TataR.M. Lala
- Pleased But Not SatisfiedDavid L. Sokol
- Citibank: A Century in AsiaPeter Starr, 2002
- Iron Will: Cleveland-Cliffs and the Mining of Iron OreTerry S. Reynolds and Virginia P. Dawson, 2011
- Margin of SafetySeth Klarman, 1991
- The special situations booksMaurece Schiller, 1955 to 1966
- Mosaic: Perspectives on InvestingMohnish Pabrai, 2004
- globalization: n. the irrational fear that someone in China will take your jobBruce Greenwald and Judd Kahn, 2008
- Competition DemystifiedBruce Greenwald and Judd Kahn, 2005
- Distress InvestingMartin Whitman and Fernando Diz, 2009
- Merger MastersKate Welling and Mario Gabelli, 2018
- Breakthrough AdvertisingEugene Schwartz, 1966
- Scientific AdvertisingClaude Hopkins, 1923
- The Boron LettersGary Halbert, 1984
- Way of the WolfJordan Belfort, 2017
- Ogilvy on AdvertisingDavid Ogilvy, 1983
- The Strategy and Tactics of PricingThomas Nagle and Georg Müller, 1987
- Setting the TableDanny Meyer, 2006
- 100 BaggersChristopher Mayer, 2015
- World Commodities and World CurrencyBenjamin Graham, 1944
- Storage and StabilityBenjamin Graham, 1937
- Walker's Manual of Unlisted StocksHarry Eisenberg, editor, the 2000 edition
- The Takeover GameJohn Brooks, 1987
- Bankruptcy Investing: How to Profit from Distressed CompaniesBen Branch and Hugh Ray
- The Crash and Its Aftermath: Securities Markets 1929 to 1933Barrie Wigmore, 1985
- Selling America ShortRichard C. Sauer, 2010
- Outsmarting the Smart MoneyLawrence A. Cunningham, 2002
- The Inefficient Stock Market and The New FinanceRobert A. Haugen
- See's Famous Old Time Candies: A Sweet StoryMargaret Moos Pick, 2005
- The Farmer From MernaKarl Schriftgiesser, 1955
- Shaw Industries: A HistoryRandall L. Patton, 2002
- Secrets of Professional Turf BettingRobert L. Bacon, 1956
- You Bet: The Betfair StoryColin Cameron, 2009
- The Little Book That Beats the MarketJoel Greenblatt, 2005