The Most Mind Blowing Business Deals in History

Talk to anyone that has bought a house and you'll be regaled with a story about the purchaser's business acumen. They did the research. They had the house inspected... Twice! They'll even give you a play-by-play of their poker face while they attempted to convince the Realtor the place was haunted. At the end of their opus, they get a 2 percent reduction on the escrow fee.

Think of the free miles if you put the down payment on a credit card...

While the entrepreneurial abilities of the average person are pretty minimal, the storied history of capitalism is chock full of powerful titans that manipulate markets and accumulate ridiculous fortunes.

Considering recent economic events, a massive vault of gold coins doesn't look like the worst investment strategy...

Steve Jobs might be worth $6 billion but he had to build his empire by consistently offering top quality and beautifully designed technology. If history has any value as a guide, that effort and patience to create a company is for suckers. Some people have managed to create vast, vast (read: impossible to truly fathom this level of wealth) fortunes with a little bit of foresight and a few audacious maneuvers. 

JP Morgan Purchases U.S. Steel with a Napkin


JP Morgan was already fantastically wealthy by the time he convinced Andrew Carnegie to sell him the Carnegie Steel Company. Carnegie had spent the majority of his adult life transforming the company into an industrial paradigm of efficiency. The company developed no less than 17 different shovels in the attempt to make steel cheaply and efficiently.

  Did you even know they made 17 different kinds of shovel?

Morgan had been hounding Carnegie for years to sell the company. One day, over lunch Morgan finally convinced Carnegie to write a number for Carnegie Steel on a napkin. After some thought, Carnegie did so. He wrote $480 million (the equivalent of $10 billion today). Deciding to be bad ass, Morgan simply agreed and signed the napkin.

Lawyers for each man had a collective brain aneurysm trying to decide the legal nuances of the situation but the whole deal was legally binding in the end. Morgan changed the name of the company to U.S. Steel. Carnegie promptly retired with his pot of gold and started a foundation that never did anything of benefit for anyone ever again.

As it turns out, Carnegie was a bit of an idiot... Well, as much as a guy who got paid $10 billion can really be considered an idiot. Pondering the kind of hypothetical question that doesn't need to be asked, Carnegie asked Morgan what he would have done if the number on the napkin had been $1 billion.

"I would have signed it," Morgan reportedly said.

Sucker...

Carnegie and his foundation were alright in the long run. Today, the charity's endowment is roughly $3 billion. Basically, they're still trying to spend the fortune of a man who died 90 years ago.

Most of Russian Nickel Industry Given to Mikhail Prokorov... Because He Asked for It

Some people work hard for their money. Others are blessed with skill and the ambition to capitalize on their talents. The best type of person, however, is simply in the right place at the right time. If you're truly lucky, the Dark Lord somehow blesses you with a mix of all three... Mikhail Prokhorov happens to be one of these lucky bastards.

On the other hand, his style choices are rather unfortunate...

Having received a degree from the Moscow Finance Institute, Prokorov was one of the few individuals in the Soviet Union with an understanding of international finance markets as Communism fell in the early 1990s. The chaos resulting from the regime shift created opportunities for a lot of people to get rich. The government quickly privatized state nickel mining operations into a corporation that started hemorrhaging money.

A few years later, Prokhorov oversaw the acquisition of the company, Norilsk Nickel, for a conglomerate he controlled along with a partner. "Oversaw the acquisition" might overstate the nature of deal. Norilsk Nickel was basically given to Prokhorov to manage. In short order, the company proved to be a cash machine.

Prokhorov proved his luck, yet again in 2007, after disputes with his partner, Vladimir Potanin, convinced him to sell his 25 percent stake in Norilsk. The timing proved to be freaky lucky since the price of industrial commodities fell due to the economic recession. In total, Prokhorov is worth in excess of $18 billion. Now Prokhorov spends his time as an owner of the New Jersey Nets and hanging with Jay-Z.

The Hunt Brothers Buy The World's Available Silver


Not all of the mind blowing deals on this list resulted in fantastic fortunes. By losing a lot of money and still living the high life, you prove just how wealthy you really are...

Things must be rough if they had to get rid of the motor...

In financial history, the day is known as Silver Thursday and it's important for a number of reasons. On March 27, 1980 the price of silver fell below the minimum level necessary for two brothers, Nelson and Herbert Hunt, to cover their margin requirements. Over the previous year, the brothers had been attempting to corner the silver market and purchased a lot of silver of credit.

Same basic concept...

This might not have been too serious if the Hunt brothers hadn't owned a third of the world's available silver supply. The wealthy sons of a billionaire Texas oil magnate, the brother's were attempting to use dad's fortune to create a stack of their very own. The scheme back fired and the Hunt's were unable to cover their positions. The event almost brought down Prudential Securities.

Ultimately, the brothers got investigated, fined and bailed out by the government.  The Securities and Exchange Commission passed rules preventing the ability of traders to purchase commodities positions on margin.

The family lost a substantial amount of money in the eighties through poor investment strategies, presumably based on various super villain techniques. If you've ever wondered what happens when people go from riches to "rags", the answer is simple: They're still rich. In 1999, Nelson Hunt purchased $2 million dollars worth of horses and ponies. Why? "I just want to have some fun."

These guys are true studies in successful failure...