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The Maverick by Luke Johnson
  • The Maverick

  • Dispatches from an unrepentant capitalist

  • by Luke Johnson
In stock, usually dispatched within 24 hours

    • Product code: 167314
    • ISBN: 1905641400, ISBN13: 9781905641406, 264 pages, hardback
      Published by Harriman House on 2007 , 1st
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    Rating: 4.0/5 (1 vote cast)

    Visit Luke Johnson's website

    Description of The Maverick

    For eight years between 1998 and 2006, Luke Johnson wrote a regular column as 'The Maverick' in The Sunday Telegraph. His short, pithy essays tackled subjects ranging from rich lists to bankrupt companies, from high finance to investment techniques, from philanthropy to trophy wives, bringing a practitioner's eye to the commercial world and the people in it. The Maverick quickly developed a cult following among readers who wanted to understand the blunt truth about investment, entrepreneurs, business history, and corporate life.

    This book brings together 84 of the best articles, with updates, in a single volume. What makes them unique is that Luke Johnson is not just a first-class writer, he is also one of Britain's most successful entrepreneurs. He made his name with PizzaExpress, has run and owned businesses in many different sectors, and now takes stakes in fast-growing businesses through his company, Risk Capital Partners. He is also Chairman of Channel 4. The diversity of his experience enables him to write with insight and perspective about the very serious matter of making and losing money.

    If you are in business, you will find The Maverick entertaining, informative and inspiring. If you are not in business, you will discover what makes business people tick, the hurdles they have to overcome to succeed, and the substantial benefits they bring to society.
    www.lukejohnson.org

    Reviews

    "Independent, unorthodox, even bloody minded - Johnson can be all of these and it's what makes him worth reading. The Maverick amounts to an analysis of how we've done business this past decade and holds valuable lessons for the next one."
    - Peter Bazalgette, Chief Creative Officer of Endemol Group and Chairman Endemol UK

    "The Maverick column displays original thinking that often challenges conventional opinion - Luke Johnson's views are provocative and worth reading."
    - Michael Spencer, founder and Chief Executive, ICAP

    "Luke Johnson knows a lot of detail about an amazing range of business subjects and has thoughtful views about all the controversial ones. Well-known to investors as the impresario behind many unlikely stock market and private equity successes, he is also, like you and me, a regular investor in many companies - especially small ones. Few such practitioners reveal their thoughts in print on a weekly basis, but Mr Johnson does, currently in the FT and previously in the Sunday Telegraph. Eighty of his best Telegraph columns are collected together in The Maverick. He touches on everything from Machiavelli to the changing fortunes of the Chiquita banana company. Magpies who like their wisdom in 900 word gobbets will enjoy every page."
    - Alistair Blair, Investors Chronicle - Books of the Year

    Contents of The Maverick

    Introduction

    1.Entrepreneurs and the Rich

    Why Run Your Own Business?
    Founder's Courage
    Getting on the Rich Lists
    50 Reasons To Be An Entrepreneur
    How Tycoons Breed Success
    Corporate Executive vs Entrepreneur
    Trophy Wives
    Billionaire Politicians
    Paradise Syndrome
    Inheritance
    Letting Go
    Legacy

    2. Management and Corporate Life

    Business Maxims
    Executive Disease
    Business Language
    Seven Deadly Sins
    Corporate Comedy
    Vicious Business
    Old Raiders Face Music
    Boards
    Buzzwords
    Selling

    3. Winners

    World-Beating, Single-Product Companies
    Champagne
    Ineos
    Digital Radio
    Air Conditioning
    Trademark Companies
    Book Publishing

    4. Problems

    What Can Go Wrong
    Things Fall Apart
    The Worst Business Decision of All Time
    The Downside of Downsizing
    GEC a Go-Go
    Health Clinic
    Cammell Laird - A Marine Tragedy
    The Software Industry Rip-Off
    Frank Timis

    5. Economics

    A Philosophy of Capitalism
    China
    The Importance of Title
    Russia
    Student Misery
    Japan Will Recover
    The Age of the Dumpies is Dawning

    6. Business History

    Let's Support the Inventors of Real Wealth
    Four of the Really Big Losers
    Coke, Big Mac and Harry Hyams
    The First American Boss of the Tube
    Georges Doriot
    United Fruit
    A to Z
    Airline Pioneers
    Alfred Nobel
    Who Remembers the Founder of GM?
    The Panama Canal
    Selfridges and Whiteley's
    Richard Cobden
    George Hudson
    Sir Henry Wellcome

    7. Investing

    The Key Questions About Every Investment
    Estate Agents
    Perception and Reality in Chairmen's Statements
    Forestry
    Langbar
    Why to Buy a Share
    A Really Ethical Portfolio
    A Bitter Pill from My Vet
    Give these Market Myths a Miss
    Ten-Baggers
    Selling Signals
    Regus
    PartyGaming
    The Loser's Game, the Winner's Curse and Freud
    Is the Neuer Markt a Giant Ramp?
    Why Stock Markets Always Kill The Ones
    They Love The Most

    8. Business and Society

    Who Says Tycoons Are Always Wicked?
    Public vs Private Sector
    Public Schools
    The Lawyers Will Kill Us All!
    Twenty-First Century Philanthropists
    Reinventing the NHS
    Money War of the Ages

    Appendix

    A list of books referred to in articles

    About Luke Johnson

    Luke Johnson is Chairman of Channel 4 Television and Risk Capital Partners. For eight years he wrote a weekly column on business in The Sunday Telegraph.

    He was Chairman of PizzaExpress during the 1990s and is currently an owner and Chairman of Giraffe restaurants and Patisserie Valerie. He has also owned companies in recruitment, dentistry and retailing.

    He graduated from Oxford and worked as a stockbroking analyst covering the media sector in the 1980s. He lives in London and is married with two children.

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