The Indian Railways is one of the world's largest state-owned enterprises with around 1.4 million employees, over 63,000 kilometres of network, running around 13,000 trains each day. Bankruptcy to Billions reveals for the first time how the Indian Railways transformed from near bankruptcy to post US$ 6 billion (Rs 25,000 crore) annual cash surplus in 2008. This book is a case study of how the Indian Railways brought a revolutionary change in its infrastructure to script its own success story. Defining and evaluating the conventional policy approach to reform large state-owned enterprises, this book comprehensively analyses Railways' innovative modus operandi that changed its status from a "profit averse" to a "profit oriented" organization. Providing valuable insights into other state-owned enterprises, Bankruptcy to Billions unveils the real story of the transformation of the Indian Railways.

Thor Bjorgolfsson is a self-styled adventure capitalist with an addiction to debt and an insatiable appetite for business deals who became Iceland's first billionaire. After 10 years establishing his financial empire with alco-pops and beer in the lawless 'Wild East' of newly-capitalist Russia in the 1990s, he moved on to merging, floating, spinning off and privatising businesses from Finland to Sweden, Poland, Bulgaria, Serbia, Greece and the Czech Republic. On his 40th birthday, and worth $3.5 billion, he was sitting on top of the world; only 250 people in it were richer than him. His most spectacular triumph was the takeover of Iceland's second-largest bank, Landsbanki - he had expected his investment's value to double or treble in four years, and instead it rose ten-fold. But when financial meltdown hit Iceland in October 2008, Landsbanki crashed and burned, taking Bjorgolfsson with it. Within 12 months he had lost 3.3 billion euros - 98.5% of his wealth - and was treated as a scapegoat in his native country for supposedly bringing about the disaster. Faced with appalling debts, Bjorgolfsson has made good on his promises to repay his creditors, and at the age of 47 is now a billionaire once again.

In probing the Chapter 11 bankruptcies of Johns-Manville, Frank Lorenzo's Continental Airlines and Te×aco, the author shows not only that bankruptcy is pursued by managers more and more as a strategy, but that it is becoming accepted by the business community as a viable option and not just a last-ditch solution.

Praise for Walter's Way "Walter truly cares about the caregivers in this world. And that comes through loud and clear in this truly memorable book about a life more than well lived." —Aidan Quinn Actor "A fascinating and inspiring account of a remarkable life." —George J. Todd, MD, faCS Professor and Chairman, Dept. of Surgery, Mount Sinai St. Luke's-Roosevelt Hospital Center "Walter is more than just a benevolent soul; he's a teacher of all the good things that we should do with our gifts. We can all learn from the fascinating story he tells in these pages." —Patrick H. Dollard President & CEO, The Center for Discovery

”This book is your chance to learn from others’ mistakes.”-- Entrepreneur In the 1960s, IBM CEO Tom Watson called an executive into his office after his venture lost $10 million. The man assumed he was being fired. Watson told him, “Fired? Hell, I spent $10 million educating you. I just want to be sure you learned the right lessons.” There are thousands of books about successful companies but virtually none about the lessons to be learned from those that crash and burn. Now Paul Carroll and Chunka Mui draw on research into more than 750 flameouts to reveal the seven biggest reasons for business failure.

Including conversations with world leaders, Nobel prizewinners, business leaders, artists and Olympians, Vikas Shah quizzes the minds that matter on the big questions that concern us all.

It was the most brutal corporate restructuring in Wall Street history. The 2015 bankruptcy brawl for the storied casino giant, Caesars Entertainment, pitted brilliant and ruthless private equity legends against the world's most relentless hedge fund wizards. In the tradition of Barbarians at the Gate and The Big Short comes the riveting, multi-dimensional poker game between private equity firms and distressed debt hedge funds that played out from the Vegas Strip to Manhattan boardrooms to Chicago courthouses and even, for a moment, the halls of the United States Congress. On one side: Apollo Global Management and TPG Capital. On the other: the likes of Elliott Management, Oaktree Capital, and Appaloosa Management. The Caesars bankruptcy put a twist on the old-fashioned casino heist. Through a $27 billion leveraged buyout and a dizzying string of financial engineering transactions, Apollo and TPG—in the midst of the post-Great Recession slump—had seemingly snatched every prime asset of the company from creditors, with the notable exception of Caesars Palace. But Caesars’ hedge fund lenders and bondholders had scooped up the company’s paper for nickels and dimes. And with their own armies of lawyers and bankers, they were ready to do everything necessary to take back what they believed was theirs—if they could just stop their own infighting. These modern financiers now dominate the scene in Corporate America as their fight-to-the-death mentality continues to shock workers, politicians, and broader society—and even each other. In The Caesars Palace Coup, financial journalists Max Frumes and Sujeet Indap illuminate the brutal tactics of distressed debt mavens—vultures, as they are condemned—in the sale and purchase of even the biggest companies in the world with billions of dollars hanging in the balance.