Outrageous Fortune: The Rise and Ruin of Conrad and Lady Black

By Tom Bower

Book Overview

The rise and fall of media tycoon Conrad Black and his journalist wife, Barbara Amiel, is one of the great stories of the modern business world. In Outrageous Fortune, London-based journalist Tom Bower reveals how Conrad and Lady Black used other people's money to finance a billionaire's lifestyle, winning friends and influence in London and New York along the way. Their story of overweening ambition and greed is a modern-day classic of hubris.

Born into considerable wealth in Canada, Conrad Black bought and sold (but never effectively managed) several businesses, from mining and tractors to broadcasting companies and newspapers. In 1985 Black's holding com-pany, Hollinger, bought the Telegraph Group, the British newspaper publishing conglomerate. In the years that followed, Black additionally became the proprietor of the Chicago Sun-Times, the Jerusalem Post, and a host of other magazines and newspapers in the English-speaking world.

In 1992 Conrad married Barbara Amiel, who later famously said, "I have an extravagance that knows no bounds." Besotted by his wife, he began living way beyond his means. Fabulous parties, jewelry, clothes, and multiple mansions followed, and by 2001 Black had renounced his Canadian citizenship--which he called "an impediment to my progress in another more amenable jurisdiction"--in order to become a life peer in the British House of Lords.

But the scheming deceptive duo's lies came crashing down when, in November 2003, an American report accused Black of "outright fraud," "ethical corruption," and "corporate kleptocracy." Black was forced out as Hollinger's chief executive, and two years later he was charged with eight counts of fraud--allegations that he will vigorously deny at his trial in Chicago, beginning in March of 2007.

Based on hundreds of interviews with bankers, politicians, journalists, mega-deal makers, and close friends of Conrad and Lady Black, Outrageous Fortune is packed with lively anecdotes and salacious gossip. It is a hugely enter-taining and engrossing account of gullibility in high places.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0061146145
• ISBN13: 9780061146145
• Release Date: November 2006
• Publisher: HarperCollins
• Length: 448 Pages
• Weight: 1.57 lbs.
• Dimensions: 9.0" x 1.2" x 6.0"

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Conrad Black was born to relatively wealthy parents in Canada and was able to start from there and build quite a large business empire, mostly in newspaper publishing. He subquently became a British citizen and was knighted. He married the beautiful columnist Barbara Amiel who later famously said 'I have an extravagance that knows no bounds.' If the schedule is maintained, Conrad Black will go on trial on March 5, 2007 charged with eight counts of mail fraud and wire fraud relating to the alleged diversion of millions of dollars from one of his companies. If convicted he could be sentenced to up to 40 years. This is an unauthorized biography, and is not very complimentary. It describes a Conrad Black that seemed to have the ability to borrow lots of money to buy companies but than no capability to manage them profitably. If nothing else, the Blacks are interesting people. They present a story like the lifestyles of the rich and famous but based on lies and illegal borrowing of millions of dollars.