Barbarians at the Gate film review

Upon viewing the film “Barbarians at the Gate,” based upon a novel by the same title, I was able to get a small glimpse into the hostile world of corporate life in the mid to late 1980’s. At first glance I was astonished by the lack of morals and ethics within this community, but upon further investigation I deduced that this incredible greed is what drove the economy. Without this greed, corporate America would have never grown to their immense size.

The film begins with the management of RJR Nabisco celebrating their victory over Anthony Cappallone, a man suing the tobacco company for contributing to the death of his wife, who had been a long time smoker. The trial was thought to be the culprit for restraining the price of stock in RJR Nabisco, but when the stock failed to rebound after the victory RJR Nabisco’s CEO, F. Ross Johnson began to worry. Luckily, RJR had been developing a revolutionary cigarette, one with

. . .

View the whole essay, without interruption

From hear, huge ego’s and bad business sense raised the bidding war to a whole entire new level to where KKR put in a final bid of $109 for each outstanding share, and Johnson along with Shearson put in a final bid of $112. This greed is what causes companies to expand and work harder, so they earn themselves more money. This miracle product labeled Premier, was going to be RJR Nabisco’s saving grace for their dwindling stick prices. Johnson was forced to leave to RJR, receiving a very generous severence from KKR. Once news of this reached Henry Kravis, he too investigated the company, and not wanting to be out done in his own game, put in a bid of $90 for each outstanding share.

Perhaps the most important lesson I was taught from this movie is that even though greed is considered to be evil, this greed is what drives the economy. ” Knowing only one last way to increase the undervalued stock prices, F. Cohen a rookie to the art of LBO’s, was confident that he could pull of the single largest LBO in history. So due to KKR’s greed, they streamlined the corporation and actually made it better. But after intense testing, it was determined that Premier’s “tasted like s***, and smelled like farts. So as Kravis said “Debt can be an asset. Ross Johnson decided that along with Ed Horigan, head of RJR, and 3 other members of management, he would initiate a leveraged buyout (LBO). After intense scrutiny of RJR Nabisco, Shearson decided that because of the heavily undervalued stock they could place a bid of $75 for every outstanding share, and in the long run still make a killing. These bids were then brought before the board and after long and intense debate the board put the!

ir backing in KKR because they felt that it would be too difficult for Shearson to raise the money , and more importantly they didn’t feel that Johnson could ever pay it off due to his extravagant spending and incredible greed.

------------------------------------------------------------------------

**Bibliography**

Approximate Word count = 624
Approximate Pages = 2 (250 words per page double spaced)

Simply subscribe to view this paper, and 100,000 others.