In the 1980s, greed was good. In the 1990s, imperial chief executives ruled the day. How will the current
decade be defined? Most likely this way: obsessive secrecy. Private equity, hedge funds, subprime-mortgage lenders—all have thrived in recent years and, in some cases, are imploding now, thanks in part to an astonishing lack of transparency.

Financier Henry Kravis spent some of his summer on Capitol Hill, lobbying Congress to keep its prying eyes out of private equity and to forget about potential new taxes. Stephen Schwarzman has turned into a whipping boy of the private-money industry for calling attention to himself with the $449 million he took from the initial public offering of the Blackstone Group. The subprime-mortgage meltdown continues apace, fueled by complex transactions in which it often isn’t clear who are the ultimate buyers and sellers of the debt. In today’s bubble economy, the most valuable currency is silence.

We launched Condé Nast Portfolio in May to peel back the layers of intrigue. Our goal is to chronicle how business shapes the world and engage you with deeply reported stories, paired with vibrant design and photography. We see the business angle everywhere, from technology and politics to sports and the arts. And judging by the response to our premier issue, it seems many of you see the world that way too. With this, our second issue, we begin publishing monthly.

Our cover story goes straight to the heart of one of the most secretive deals there is: private equity giant Cerberus and its audacious $7.4 billion plan to save Chrysler. The deal terrifies Wall Street, and for good reason; if Cerberus fails, the rest of the private-money industry fears that Congress and regulators will crack down, and worse, that it could signal the end of the buyout era. Senior writer Daniel Roth gives us a rare look inside a firm whose chief executive, Stephen Feinberg, is so obsessive about privacy, he told investors at a recent meeting that if anyone from Cerberus “has his picture in the paper and a picture of his apartment, we will do more than fire that person. We will kill him.”

Meanwhile, Jesse Eisinger reports on perhaps the dirtiest open secret in business today: the role played by ratings agencies in structuring the subprime mortgages that are in crisis now. Jesse offers up surprising new details about how the agencies actively help create the bonds they then rate.

Secrecy of another sort surrounds the Yankees, the most profitable team in sports today. Majority owner George Steinbrenner, who transformed the economics of baseball, is now 77 years old and has been receding from the public eye, leading to questions about who will succeed him. Writer Franz Lidz went in search of the elusive Boss and found him in much frailer health than his handlers have suggested.

Across the globe, in Beirut, senior writer Kevin Gray gained access to businessman-turned-politician Saad Hariri, son of Lebanon’s slain prime minister. Hariri, a prisoner in his own home because of assassination threats, candidly discusses his efforts to run the country—and stay alive.

We hope that in our pages you’ll find pieces that provoke, like our reassessment of Sandy Weill’s legacy at Citigroup, as well as pieces that illuminate the ways in which business has an impact on culture, like the Culture Inc. articles on Microsoft’s in-house symphony orchestra and on cellist Jamie Walton, who sold shares in his Guarneri cello to his fans in order to finance his purchase of the $1.7 million instrument.

We’ll be back next month. Drop me a line at jlipman@portfolio.com and let me know what you think. We’re all for transparency.