Responding to change is key to survival, she explains, in a chapter on ‘Craig Effron,’ whose $3.25-billion hedge fund, Scoggin Capital Management, buys and sells the stocks and bonds primarily of companies that are merging, spinning off units, or going through financially tough times.

Effron’s returns are not correlated to the stock market, and 90 per cent of the time, his funds make money in the months the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index is down, the author finds. “I’m a risk manager, which I believe is more important these days than being an analyst,” reads a snatch of Effron-speak, cited in the book.

Playing outside his usual sandbox, Effron searches for gains in ‘Chinese equities, Russian vouchers, commercial real estate, and the government debt of Zaire.’ For instance, in 2003, he purchased ‘the debt of Zaire, now the Democratic Republic of Congo, from the Bank of Brazil, which had lent money to the African nation to build a power plant.’ It was a 20-year loan, and the bank had seen no money from Congo for 19 years and 11 months, so the Brazilians decided to sell the $150-million debt for $0.05 on $1.00, or $7.5 million, just to get it off the books, narrates Burton. Four years and $11 million in legal bills later, Effron collected $70 million from the Congolese government, she continues.

Good read.

Failure is essential in achieving success, though it is of course not sufficient for achieving success, observes Tal Ben-Shahar in The Pursuit of Perfect ( www.tatamcgrawhill.com ).