Currently senior writer for Australian Financial Review. Trevor Sykes has edited both The Bulletin and ABM, created the longstanding Pierpont column in the Financial Review and the The Bulletin, and is author of The Money Miners and Operation Dynasty: How Warwick Took John Fairfax Ltd as well as Two Centuries of Panic.

Figures and tables..Preface..Note to the second edition..1 The seeds..2 The first trustee company: TEA..3 The birth of WA Inc..4 Rothwells: the three collapses..5 Spedley: the paper castle..6 Bond: the ultimate bold rider..7 Friedrich Mitty..8 The wild bastard..9 Qintex: the shimmering mirage..10 Abe Goldberg: the smart one..11 Estate Mortgage: the giraffe who grew too high..12 The great Pyramid of Farrow..13 The sinking of Adelaide Steamship ..14 Trico: the child who went wrong..15 SBSA: a fashionable bank..16 A few quick ones..17 Give or take a billion..Appendix..Notes..Index