The Continental affair: The rise and fall of the Continental Illinois Bank - Hardcover

James P McCollom

3.11 out of 5 stars

9 ratings by Goodreads

9780396088097: The Continental affair: The rise and fall of the Continental Illinois Bank

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0396088090 ISBN 13: 9780396088097

Publisher: Dodd, Mead, 1987

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Rise and fall of the Continental Illinois bank.

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Review

"McCollom's book follows the men who ran Continental from the wildly successful international expansion period through their 1982 shock at learning the bank's energy lending unit had lent more than $1 billion to the failed Penn Square Bank of Oklahoma 'City.The book ends with the virtual federal takeover after rumors about the bank's health prompted news stories that were circulated around the world." -- Associated Press

"In a pithy, absorbing text he chronicles a chilling downward spiral leading slowly to an international run on the bank and billions in depositor losses... McCollom's narrative and character treatment of Continental personnel are masterful.This is the McGuffy's Reader and In Cold Blood of modern money.  Anyone with a dollar to bank should read this book without delay." -- Publishers Weekly

"McCollom's riveting book goes far beyond the Penn Square fiasco...The account reads like a Robert Lud�lum thriller. McCollom's lead villain is McKinsey & Company. The consulting firm was called into the bank in the mid-1970s to review its management methods. The result, as McCollom describes it, was the wholesale transformation of the bank." -- Manhattan, Inc.

"An absorbing, elegaic appreciation of how Continental Illinois, Chicago's largest bank, came to be nationalized by the US government from an insider who knew the institution when - and mourns its passing... Whether Continental could have survived .. remains an open question McCollom does not address. He does, though, evoke the bygone esprit of the bank's officer corps and the intrinsic worth of business traditions that now seem relics of a simpler, slower-paced era with decidedly lower stakes.  An affectionate, albeit analytic, memoir that conveys just how much was lost in the federal takeover and ongoing rehabilitation of Continental lllinois." -- Kirkus Reviews