Insider trading was seldom enforced until prosecutors targeted Ivan Boesky, who had already burnished his legacy as an icon of 1980s Wall Street greed.
It was Boesky who inspired the fictional Gordon Gekko’s most memorable line – “Greed is Good” – in the 1987 film, “Wall Street.”
Boeskey made a fortune illegally trading stock tips, usually about corporate takeover targets, in exchange for suitcases full of cash. A commencement speech he made in May 1986 burnished his legacy.
“I think greed is healthy,” he at the Haas School of Business at the University of California, Berkeley. “You can be greedy and still feel good about yourself.”
That year, he cut a plea deal and turned government informant against another prosecutorial target of the era, Junk Bond King Michael Milken.
Boesky wore a wire and captured incriminating evidence from Milken, who had been his closest ally. His cooperation spelled the end for investment bank Drexel Burnham Lambert and sent Milken to prison.
Boesky was fined a record $100 million and served nearly three years in prison.
Boesky capitalized on a junk bond-enabled corporate takeover wave that often destroyed companies and cost workers their jobs.
His greed was insatiable and often on full display.
He once upstaged real estate developer Gerald Guterman, who paid nearly $1 million to rent out the Queen Elizabeth 2 for his son’s bar mitzvah. Boesky arrived in a helicopter, landing on the ship, then jumping out in a tuxedo and black tie like he was James Bond.
By his own admission, he was obsessed with wealth and a flashy, opulent life. He was once quoted in The Wall Street Journal: “It’s a sickness I have in the face of which I am helpless.”