Editing Michael Milken (section)

===High-yield bonds and leveraged buyouts===
{{History of private equity and venture capital}}
{{See also|Private equity in the 1980s}}

By the mid-1980s, Milken's network of high-yield bond buyers (notably Fred Carr's [[Executive Life Insurance Company]] and [[Tom Spiegel]]'s Columbia Savings & Loan) had reached a size that enabled him to raise large amounts of money quickly.

This money-raising ability also facilitated the activities of [[leveraged buyout]] (LBO) firms such as [[Kohlberg Kravis Roberts]] and of the so-called "[[greenmail]]ers". Most of them were armed with a "[[highly confident letter]]" from Drexel, a tool Drexel's corporate finance wing crafted that promised to raise the necessary debt in time to fulfill the buyer's obligations. It carried no legal status, but by that time Milken had a reputation for being able to make markets for any bonds that he underwrote. For this reason, "highly confident letters" were considered to reliably demonstrate capacity to pay.<ref>{{cite book |quote="The firm could issue a "highly confident" letter, a formal pledge from Drexel that{{nbsp}}..." |title=Den of Thieves |page=133
|url=https://books.google.com/books?isbn=067179227X |isbn=067179227X
|author=James B. Stewart |date=1992|publisher=Simon and Schuster }}</ref><ref name=HiConTimes>{{cite news
|quote="Just as when Mike Milken was riding high{{nbsp}}... as good as cash in hand."
|newspaper=The New York Times
|url=https://www.nytimes.com/1994/06/26/business/market-watch-once-again-a-time-to-be-highly-confident.html
|title=MARKET WATCH - Once Again, A Time to Be Highly Confident
|author=Floyd Norris
|date=June 26, 1994
|access-date=August 2, 2018
|archive-date=August 2, 2018
|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180802132139/https://www.nytimes.com/1994/06/26/business/market-watch-once-again-a-time-to-be-highly-confident.html
|url-status=live
}}</ref> Supporters, like [[George Gilder]] in his book ''Telecosm'' (2000), state that Milken was "a key source of the organizational changes that have impelled economic growth over the last twenty years. Most striking was the productivity surge in capital, as Milken{{nbsp}}... and others took the vast sums trapped in old-line businesses and put them back into the markets."<ref>{{cite book|last=Gilder|first=George|title=Telecosm: How Infinite Bandwidth Will Revolutionize Our World|year=2000|publisher=[[Simon & Schuster]]|isbn=9780743215947|author-link=George Gilder|page=170}}</ref>

Despite his influence in the financial world during the 1980s, (at least one source called him the most powerful American financier since [[J. P. Morgan]]),<ref name="April Fools">{{cite book |author=Dan G. Stone |title=April Fools: An Insider's Account of the Rise and Collapse of Drexel Burnham |year=1990 |publisher=Donald I. Fine |location=New York |isbn=1-55611-228-9 |url=https://archive.org/details/aprilfoolsinside00ston }}</ref> Milken is an intensely private man who shuns publicity; he reportedly owned almost all photographs taken of him.<ref name="HC"/><ref name="SecretAgent.NYT"/>