Part 2: Chapter 7, Triangle-National Can: Kingmaker Summary and Analysis

There is a big meeting at National Can on April 2, 1985 after a Drexel financed group made an unsolicited cash offer for the company's shares. The raiders were headed by Nelson Peltz and Peter May who were also at the meeting. Milken was on vacation in Hawaii and could not be reached at the time and there were limits as to what Peltz and May could agree to. On April 4 they agreed to a purchase price of $42 per share. The takeover was successful.

The mechanics of the Drexel mechanism was that Drexel would announce in the highly confident letter that it felt it could raise the amount of money needed to finance the take over. It would also obtain commitment letters from its buyers where they promised to buy junk bonds that the shell...