Blackstone’s ace in the hole was that it was offering an all-cash deal, as opposed to Vornado’s 40 percent stock. Blackstone was also aggressive abou… - Sam Zell

I said, “You’ve got to be able to look at the deal and know what it hinges on to know whether it works or not. If you realize that the key component works, then you use the numbers to test it. You don’t do the numbers to find out eight hours later whether it was worth starting.” I’m sure his IQ was higher than mine. But that isn’t how we operate. You have to be able to effectively assess the initial picture and see where the greatest risk is most likely to be, or you’ll spend your life doing numbers just to find out if a deal will work. And all that time lost is time you could have been looking at other opportunities.

In very short order, we were able to persuade Blackstone to raise its bid to $48.50 a share for a total of $20 billion, plus $16 billion in debt, or $36 billion total. I insisted that our agreement include an unusually small breakup fee so other potential bidders wouldn’t be discouraged. The typical breakup fee is up to 3 percent of the selling price, but I set ours at $200 million — around 1 percent of the offer’s equity value. Obviously, this didn’t sit well with Blackstone, but it was not negotiable.

If you’re not aware that you’re not supposed to be able do something, the barriers to doing it are dramatically lessened.