Lazard's IPO May be Hazardous

摘要

Years ofembarrassing controversies over convoluted financial reports should have taught companies and their legions of advisers to keep their messages to investors simple. Instead, some seem determined to make shareholders' lives complicated. Like Lazard. On Apr. 11 the storied 157-year-old investment bank led by brash dealmaker Bruce Wasserstein filed detailed plans to collect about $1 billion from investors by going public. But the prospectus raises almost as many questions as it answers.