Lazard CEO Bruce Wasserstein dies

NEW YORK, Oct. 14 (UPI) -- Bruce Wasserstein, an innovative and aggressive deal maker on Wall Street and the chief executive officer at Lazard, died Wednesday, sources said.

The New York Times said Wasserstein was 61 and recently described as "stable and recovering" in the hospital due to an irregular heartbeat. The cause of death was not immediately available, the Times said.

Although he disliked the nickname, Wasserstein was known as "Bid-'em Up Bruce," for his high-roller style in mergers and acquisitions.

He attended Harvard Law School and the Harvard Business School and served for a time as one of Ralph Nader's "Nader's Raiders." Early in his career, he joined First Boston, then set up Wasserstein Perella & Co. with a First Boston colleague, Joseph Perella.

Wasserstein worked on some of the biggest mergers on Wall Street, including Kohlberg Kravis Roberts' takeover of RJR Nabisco, a deal that was portrayed in the book "Barbarians at the Gate."

He sold the firm to Dresdner Bank in 2000 for about $1.4 billion. In 2002, he was hired to run Lazard, where he engineered the move to take the company public after more than 100 years of private ownership, the Times said.