Towers of Debt

The fortunes of the Reichmann brothers and the fate of Olympia & York, the Manhattan package and the ill-fated Canary Wharf have been the subject of many newspaper and magazine articles. However, little is known of the secretive family. This book tells how the Reichmanns grew from modest beginnings as Toronto tile merchants to found a vast, world-wide real-estate empire, and recounts the events that resulted in the run on Olympia & York commercial paper, the default on loans, and the filings for bankruptcy in Canada, the US and, finally, the UK. Behind it all is a profile of the mastermind behind the empire: Paul Reichmann.