Ivan F. Boesky, the flamboyant stock trader whose cooperation with the government cracked open one of the largest insider trading scandals on Wall Street, has died at the age of 87.
After Boesky's arrest, accounts widely circulated that he had had told business students during a commencement address at the University of California at Berkley in 1985 or 1986, "Greed is all right, by the way. I want you to know that. I think greed is healthy. You can be greedy and still feel good about yourself."
"There was a very substantial amount of materiality available," Boesky said during his 1993 divorce proceedings. "We had places in Palm Beach, Paris, New York, the south of France." Levine was arrested before his payout could come, tripped up by his own insider trading. Facing harsh penalties under the government's racketeering statutes, Levine told everything. And Boesky sang as well, providing information leading to convictions or guilty pleas in cases involving former stockbroker Boyd Jefferies, Siegel, four executives of Britian's Guiness PLC, takeover strategist Paul Bilzerian, stock speculator Salim Lewis and others.
Milken eventually pleaded guilty to six securities violations, including telling Boesky he'd cover any losses he suffered trading the stock of Fischbach Corp., a takeover target at the time. "If there ever was a person to whom the title Prince of Darkness could be applied, Ivan Boesky is that man," Puccio said. "The king of greed, a person who stood for nothing except his own ambition, his own greed."
"And I don't know why Ivan engaged in illegal activities when he had a fortune estimated at over $200 million," Levine wrote in 1990. "I'm sure he derived much of his wealth from legitimate enterprise: He was skilled at arbitrage and obsessed with his work. He must have been driven by something beyond rational behavior."
Ivan Frederick Boesky was born in Detroit in 1937 into a family of Russian Jewish immigrants. Boesky said he learned industriousness from his father, who operated three delicatessens. At the age of 13 Boesky bought a 1937 Chevy truck, painted it white and sold ice cream from it at Detroit's parks, making about $150 a week in nickels and dimes.
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