Doubleday Canada

The two chief executive officers were perched on stools at the Internet Café in Paris. Edgar Bronfman Jr. looked formal, even European, in his Armani suit. In a classic case of role reversal, Vivendi chairman and CEO Jean-Marie Messier had taken off his suit jacket as if he were trying to...

prologue My grandfather Vili had a particular weakness for the "Gerbaud girls." The Gerbaud was then, much as it is now, a wonderful place to meet. It was a glittery, overproduced spot on Budapest's Vörösmarty Square, where you went to be seen as much as to see who else was there. Around the...