Fit to bust : how great companies fail / Tim Phillips.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Bad Behaviour. Stuff happens ; Can we build to last? ; A word on classification -- Too Good to Fail. Isn't that meant to be 50 million pounds? : Bernard Madoff ; The meanest SOBs: WorldCom ; Ask why: Enron ; The numbers game -- It Worked Last Time. Living above your means: Northern Rock ; Breaking the Queen's bank: Barings Bank ; Easy money: The Mississippi Company ; Glory chasers: Leeds United plc ; Upselling the dream -- Modern Rambos. Chainsaw: Al Dunlap vs. Sunbeam ; These people: Bear Stearns ; Mr. Crapner: Ratners ; The man who always paid: Clarence Hatry ; Heads they win, tails we lose -- All Together Now. Frozen assets: Iceland ; An undertaking of great advantage: The South Sea Company ; Astounding and momentous failure: General Motors ; The smell of dead animals: Albania ; MRDA -- Greater Fools. Feeding risk: Lehman Brothers ; Confidence at its height: The Tulip Mania ; The greatest financier: Charles Ponzi ; Promises, promises: Home-Stake Production Co. ; Boys will be boys -- Look What We Made. A fitting start to the 21st century: AOL Time Warner ; Breaking up is hard to do: Royal Bank of Scotland and ABN AMRO ; Shooting the messenger: Bank of Scotland and Halifax ; To infinity and beyond: USWeb ; When mergers go bad -- Almost Revolutionary. Enhanced securitization: AIG ; The money machine: Long Term Capital Management ; Paying the price: LetsBuyIt.Com ; The next level: Digiscents ; Bigger than the Internet: Segway ; The invisible hand.

Examines the most avoidable business disasters of recent history. Each case study begins with a disastrous decision, examining what happened, why it happened and what could have been differently. Includes: Enron, Polaroid, WorldCom, and Woolworth's, etc.