Among the most notable corporate raiders of the 1970s and 1980s were Louis Wolfson, Carl Icahn, Victor Posner, Meshulam Riklis, Nelson Peltz, Robert M. Bass, T. Boone Pickens, Paul Bilzerian, Harold Clark Simmons, Kirk Kerkorian, James Goldsmith, Saul Steinberg and Asher Edelman.
These investors used a number of the same tactics and targeted the same type of companies as more traditional leveraged buyouts and in many ways could be considered a forerunner of the later private equity firms.
[7] In later years, Milken and Drexel would shy away from certain of the more "notorious" corporate raiders as the firm and the private equity industry attempted to move upscale.
In 1985, Milken raised $750 million for a similar blind pool for Ronald Perelman, which would ultimately prove instrumental in acquiring his biggest target: The Revlon Corporation.
The Revlon takeover, because of its well-known brand, was profiled widely by the media and brought new attention to the emerging boom in leveraged buyout activity.
Litigation associated with the takeover has also become standard reading for introductory business organization classes in most law schools, introducing what have come to be known as "Revlon duties" for boards of companies that are up for auction.
In the late 1980s several famous corporate raiders suffered from bad investments financed by large amounts of leverage, ultimately losing money for their investors.
Additionally, with the fall of Michael Milken and the subsequent collapse of Drexel Burnham Lambert, the credit lines for these investors dried up.
By the end of the decade, management of many large publicly traded corporations reacted negatively to the threat of potential hostile takeover or corporate raid and pursued drastic defensive measures including poison pills, golden parachutes and increasing debt levels on the company's balance sheet.
[14] Although private equity rarely received a thorough treatment in popular culture, several films did feature stereotypical "corporate raiders" prominently.