The institute was founded in 1991 by former Drexel Burnham Lambert banker Michael Milken, who is known for his role in the development of the market for high-yield bonds (also called junk bonds) during the 1970s and 1980s and his 1990 guilty plea to multiple felony charges that he violated US securities laws.
From 1978 to 1990, Ackerman was Director of International Capital Markets at investment bank Drexel Burnham Lambert.
First Boston made a bridge loan to the buy-out firm just as Drexel Burnham Lambert was running into trouble and the junk bond market was drying up, and was stuck with the loan.
Frederick Russell Burnham | Drexel University | Christopher Lambert | Adam Lambert | Daniel Burnham | Paul Lambert | Burnham | Lambert | Burnham, Buckinghamshire | Woluwe-Saint-Lambert | Lambert Simnel | Drexel Burnham Lambert | Andrew Lambert | Seth Burnham | Kit Lambert | Johann Heinrich Lambert | George Washington Lambert | George Lambert | Drexel University College of Medicine | Warner–Lambert | John Lambert | Constant Lambert | Walter Dean Burnham | Mary Lambert | Lambert Wilson | Lambert Wickes | Lambert of Hersfeld | Lambert Meertens | James Burnham | Drexel Dragons |
In the mid-1970s, it sold a 25 percent stake to Firestone Tire and Rubber Company, renaming itself Drexel Firestone, which evolved into Drexel Burnham Lambert after the 1976 absorption of the boutique investment research firm William D. Witter.
Pollack presided over several high-profile securities cases, including the litigation arising from the failure of Drexel Burnham Lambert and cases arising from sales of internet related stocks by Merrill Lynch.