About the Book
If it were your job to bring a company to the bargaining table so it could merge, sell, or divest, you had better have the stamina and guts as well as an intricate knowledge of how the human mind operates. Negotiating these kinds of deals is not for the faint of heart. But for over fifty years, one merchandising giant after another--Marshalls, TJ Maxx, Home Depot, Nine West, Kohl's, Macy's, Sears, CVS, The Limited, Dollar Tree, Eddie Bauer, Interparfums, Jeffrey Stores, and Jos A. Bank, to name a few--have relied on Gilbert Harrison to help them forge just these kinds of deals. Have they all been signed, sealed, and delivered? No, that's not how the game works, and getting many of these deals negotiated is exactly that--a game. In all deals, nobody knows who to believe or not to believe, and what a company's objectives are. But whether buying, selling, or divesting, it has been Harrison's job to try and figure out the secret competing interests of a company and to get those deals across the finish line. Deal Junkie is the story of Gilbert Harrison's rise to becoming one of the true lions in the field of retail, apparel, beauty, footwear, and other merchandising and consumer-related companies.
About the Author :
Gilbert Harrison was born on Christmas Day, 1940, in New York City. His family moved shortly thereafter to New Haven, Connecticut, where he was raised. He attended the Wharton School and then the School of Law, both at the University of Pennsylvania. His first job in law took him back to New York City, where he practiced corporate and securities law. After moving to Philadelphia, he joined Blank Rome as an associate lawyer. Several years later, he and a fellow lawyer struck out on their own, founding Financo in the early 1970s. Their business rose steadily over time, becoming one of the largest boutique investment firms in the country. Financo was bought by Lehman Brothers in the mid-1980s, and Harrison began a difficult but intensive four-year period under Lehman-one that ended with his dissatisfaction with the banking firm and his eventual return to the helm of Financo. By the early 1990s, Financo, with Harrison at the controls, continued to be one of the true leaders in retail and other merchandising acquisitions. By 2020, after a long and successful run, Harrison sold his shares in Financo and started Harrison Group, providing financial services and consulting to its clients. The author resides on the Upper East Side of New York City, as well as in Southampton and Palm Beach, Florida, with his wife of more than fifty-five years. He has three children, six grandchildren, and remains busy as ever in business. Peter Lerman is a narrator from the heart of New York City: Brooklyn born and raised. Manhattan and Brooklyn were suffused with the flavors and sounds of the entire world. He tasted it all and heard it all. When you come of age in NYC, nothing is foreign. When you hear a low grumble in his voice on occasion, it is authentic. His first wife told him that he loved her not nearly as much as he loved the sound of his own voice. This made him wonder if other people might love the sound of his voice as well. And so, a narrator was born. Also, an amateur thespian, a trade show presenter, a lecturer, an off-key cabaret singer, and an inveterate teller of jokes one does not tell in mixed company. Peter has been a professional photographer in New York City, owned a model and talent management company, and knocked around from Brooklyn to Manhattan and back again only to wind up in Connecticut. His breath control is fabulous because he is also a board certified respiratory therapist. He has appeared onstage as Horace Vandergelder in Hello Dolly, Gangster #2 in Kiss Me Kate, Bobby Gould in Speed-the-Plow, the Governor of Texas in Best Little Whorehouse . . ., Jonathan Brewster in Arsenic and Old Lace, and Lenny in Rumors. The voice is deep and resonant. Sometimes formal, sometimes not. Never stale. Always eminently listenable.
