The Reincarnation Of Peter Cohen

As the former chief executive of Shearson Lehman Hutton Inc., Peter A. Cohen knows a thing or two about history-making takeovers. In 1988, he helped ignite the $25 billion battle for RJR Nabisco Inc., the ugliest corporate tussle ever to take place in the U.S. Over a decade later, when his old Lehman Brothers Inc. friend Ruggiero Magnoni phoned from Milan in late February, Cohen had a chance to be in on another piece of history. Magnoni told him that Italy's scrappy Olivetti was readying a $60 billion hostile bid for telephone giant Telecom Italia--which would be the biggest European takeover ever attempted.

Cohen, a longtime Olivetti director, had just enough time to catch the last flight from New York to Milan for an emergency board meeting to approve the offer. Later, a jet-lagged Cohen and other members of the management team celebrated the audacious bid in a nearby restaurant. As the dinner was ending, an ebullient Cohen approached Magnoni, a 48-year-old Milanese financier and the key banker on the deal. "Ruge," said Cohen. "This is your RJR."