INSTANT VIEW: Lazard CEO Bruce Wasserstein dies

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Lazard Ltd Chief Executive Bruce Wasserstein has died at the age of 61, a Lazard spokeswoman said on Wednesday.

Lazard late on Sunday said Wasserstein, a legendary dealmaker, had been hospitalized for an irregular heartbeat. At the time, it called his condition "serious" but said that he was "stable and recovering."

The following are reactions from M&A bankers, lawyers and investors:

JOE PERELLA, CO-FOUNDER OF PERELLA WEINBERG PARTNERS, AND LONG TIME PARTNER OF BRUCE WASSERSTEIN AT BOTH CSFB AND WASSERSTEIN PERELLA & CO

"I am deeply saddened by the news of Bruce's passing. We have known each other for 33 years and we were partners together for 16 years. We accomplished a lot together. Bruce was a rare talent and this is a great loss for Wall Street.

"My heart goes out to Bruce's family and his colleagues at Lazard."

FELIX ROHATYN, FORMER US AMBASSADOR TO FRANCE AND EXECUTIVE AT LAZARD

"Bruce was one of the very early practitioners of mergers and acquisitions, and he was a great tactician. He was extremely smart. He scared people actually. He kind of lived through the various stages of the M&A business, which some of us lived through for the last 30-40 years, and he was always extremely successful.

"At one point he was given the nickname of 'Bid-'em-up Bruce,' but he was a very careful banker."

BRYAN BURROUGH, SPECIAL CORRESPONDENT FOR VANITY FAIR MAGAZINE AND CO-AUTHOR OF BARBARIANS AT THE GATE

"Bruce Wasserstein was a titan of a legendary age in Wall Street history, when investment bankers during the 1980s seemed to be able to guide the fates -- the lives and deaths of many, many large American corporations. He was the biggest and the best, and he probably would have told you so.

"Wasserstein and Joe Perella in the early 1980s formed an M&A advisory powerhouse, the likes of which Wall Street has not seen before or since, and everything that happened to him subsequently accrued from those early days.

"He was somewhat controversial in that he did come under criticism for essentially advising his clients to always bid higher, bid more, for which he received the nickname 'Bid 'em Up Bruce.' I don't know if that was entirely fair. What I do know is that he was a brilliant man ... he was the first among equals of an entire class of investment banker in the '80s. Bruce was the biggest and the best known and it was a reputation he earned wholeheartedly."

ROY SMITH, PROFESSOR AT NEW YORK UNIVERSITY'S STERN SCHOOL OF BUSINESS

"He was one of the landmark figures on Wall Street of the last 25 years, in a category with Michael Milken, Lew Ranieri, and Jerry Kohlberg. He created a different paradigm for mergers.

"He was involved in the more creative and aggressive forms of it. He had a career at First Boston, then he left to form his own firm, which he sold, and then he went to Lazard. He had three acts where most people had one."

ACTIVIST INVESTOR CARL ICAHN

"He was a good friend and a smart guy. I respected him. He was one of the few really smart guys on Wall Street."

FRANCIS AQUILA, M&A ATTORNEY WITH SULLIVAN & CROMWELL

"Bruce Wasserstein was a true giant in the M&A world. He was a central figure of so many takeover battles in the 70s, 80s, 90s, and even today with Kraft's bid for Cadbury. He's been such a fixture in the M&A market that it's really hard to think of him not being there anymore.

"I was surprised to see how young he was. He's been around for more than 30 years, which shows that even at a young age he was having such an impact.

"The real lesson he taught was never, ever allow yourself to be defeated. Always come back. Always reinvent yourself. When many thought that Bruce was done, he always managed to pop up somewhere and started all over again.

"I think many people were skeptical when Bruce came to Lazard, that he was going to be able to remake Lazard. He did such a tremendous job at taking a firm that had a great reputation, but fractious and he turned it into a powerhouse again. In a lot of ways Lazard -- what it is today and what it will be in the future -- will be his most lasting legacy."

STEFAN SELIG, EXECUTIVE VICE CHAIRMAN OF GLOBAL CORPORATE AND INVESTMENT BANKING AT BANK OF AMERICA

"Whatever small success I've had, I owe in part to Bruce, who was an extraordinary banker and teacher."

(Reporting by Dan Wilchins, Steve Eder, Joseph Giannone and Anupreeta Das in New York; Jessica Hall in Philadelphia; and Svea Herbst in Boston)