Summary: A newly revived Pan Am is in trouble. Accidents are plaguing their planes, they’re being turned in to the FAA for bogus violations, and their financial security is anything but stable. From all indications, someone is manipulating their stock valuation, and the lenders are calling in all the chips. Will the new CFO be able to save this fledgling airline?
Setting: US and Great Britain, late 1980’s
Plot: It’s not very often (in the books that I read, anyway) that the plot revolves around financing a company.
According to the narrative, Pan Am went out of business and the company has recently been brought back to life, due to the efforts of Elizabeth Sterling, a rising star on Wall Street. When the CFO of the fledgling airline makes some bad decisions (undoing some of the deals Elizabeth put together), management in the company smells trouble coming and entices Elizabeth to sign on as their new CFO.
Now Elizabeth has to restructure all of the deals all over again, but now someone’s been talking to all the lenders and convincing them not to loan to Pan Am. Other things start going wrong as well; maintenance problems with the planes, missing pilot certification records, intruders discovered in their maintenance facilities. It looks like someone is trying to put Pan Am back out of business.
Can Elizabeth find someone who’s willing to lend the necessary money to the new company?
Criticisms: Some of the financial material was over my head, but there’s enough action to pull you through the rest of the book.
Wrap-up: It might sound pretty boring, but it’s actually a pretty good book. Nance is very knowledgeable about the airline business, and he’s not too bad at the action sequences either. Worth a look.
Grade: By my arbitrary scale, I give this book a solid B.
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