NEW YORK (Reuters) ? Bruce Wasserstein stands out, even in the hard-charging world of Wall Street, as an intense competitor who almost always gets what he wants.

The head of Bermuda-registered investment banking partnership Lazard Ltd. capped a storied career by completing an $854.6 million initial public offering on Wednesday, ending 157 years of family control of the world?s largest closely held advisory firm.

Underwriters sold more shares than expected, though priced at the low end of the proposed range. In early trading yesterday, Lazard shares were unchanged at $25.

Floating Lazard was a tough challenge for one of Wall Street?s best-known dealmaker, who spent about a year negotiating with managing partners to support the IPO needed to raise funds to buy out chairman Michel David-Weill and retired partners.

Wasserstein, 57, now emerges as chairman and chief executive of an independent financial adviser as worldwide merger and acquisition (M&A) activity heats up ? while adding to his wealth with an 11.7 percent stake worth more than $300 million.

?He?s reached the goal line in his effort to win undisputed control of Lazard,? said Harvard Business School Professor Samuel Hayes. ?He is an extremely focused person who has always been very adept in finding solutions.?

He could easily have become another victim to the imperious David-Weill, 72, a descendant of the firm?s founders, who picked and then purged would-be successors over the years. Indeed, to secure David-Weill?s promise not to block a listing, Wasserstein last December agreed to contract changes that could have cost him his job if the IPO was not completed in 2005.

Over the past 25 years Wasserstein has helped broker more than 1,000 transactions worth more than $250 billion, including Time?s merger with Warner Brothers and the Dean Witter, Discover & Co. combination with Morgan Stanley.

Wasserstein has earned a reputation as a brilliant but hard-nosed banker who always found a way to get deals done. Among other schemes, Wasserstein invented the ?Pac-Man defence? where a takeover target turns and buys its would-be acquirer.

After the courts dictated that companies must accept the highest takeover offer, Wasserstein was labelled ?Bid ?Em Up Bruce? for getting clients to pay top dollar.

On Wall Street, critics say Wasserstein has always been working for himself ? and his inner circle ? rather than working primarily for his employers.

In 2000 Wasserstein sold his mergers boutique Wasserstein Perella & Co. to Germany?s Dresdner Bank for $1.5 billion. When plans for an investment banking unit spin-off failed a year later, Wasserstein quit and left the firm bearing his name. In time, some of the people he recruited to Dresdner also left. Long-time partners at Lazard complained they were getting lesser terms in the IPO than Wasserstein recruits.

Brooklyn-born Wasserstein has always excelled, earning an undergraduate degree from Harvard University at the age of 19, followed by Harvard law and business school degrees. He also attended London School of Economics and went to Cambridge University as a Knox Travelling Fellow.

Briefly a lawyer for consumer advocate Ralph Nader, Wasserstein joined elite law firm Cravath, Swaine & Moore.

He then joined investment bank First Boston Corp., where he and Joseph Perella, another top Wall Street banker, built an M&A practice before forming Wasserstein Perella & Co. in 1988.

Outside Wall Street, Wasserstein?s favourite pursuit has been journalism. The one-time college newspaper editor and summer staffer at Forbes magazine acquired New York magazine through his $2 billion investment firm, Wasserstein & Co., and has written two business books.