Born to a Hungarian Jewish father and an Austrian Catholic mother, Guy P. Wyser-Pratte has lived a life shaped by history, ambition, and risk. From an idyllic childhood on the beaches of Cannes to escaping war-torn Europe, his journey is one of resilience, fortune, and sheer survival.

At just five years old, he was moments from death when a Nazi soldier took aim as Guy attempted to crawl through a fence near the Swiss border in Menthon-Saint-Bernard. Scurrying through a pre-arranged gap in search of safety, he was seconds from being executed—until a Swiss soldier’s bullet struck his would-be executioner first. That near-death experience, forever imprinted in his memory, became a defining moment of his life: a lesson in the fragility of fate and the necessity of taking risks when the stakes are highest.

After passing through Ellis Island, he arrived in the United States as a young boy, ready to carve out his own path. Growing up in Jamaica Estates in Queens, he developed an early knack for finance influenced by his father speculating against the British pound in 1950, making a small fortune that would again change the road map for Guy. His formative years included Catholic schooling at Iona School New Rochelle, and later, a US Navy scholarship through NROTC at the University of Rochester, setting the stage for his disciplined and strategic approach to life.

With a New York University MBA in hand, Wyser-Pratte entered the world of finance, cutting his teeth at E. Wyser & Company—his father’s firm and under his tutelage—where he developed a passion for risk arbitrage—a strategy that would define his career and serve as the basisfor his MBA thesis and future publication of Risk Arbitrage. His first major deals were a gamble, but a mentor in Clark Clifford helped himsecure his foothold in the financial world.

As his influence in arbitrage grew, so did his activism inthe corporate world, culminating in his resurrecting Wyser-Pratte & Company, the successor company to his father’s firm first established in Paris, France in 1929. His involvement in landmark deals, corporate battles, and major financial shifts from Great Western United in the USA to Lagardere in France—and countless others—cemented his reputation as a formidable financial strategist.

Yet, his life was not without its dips and challenges. His battles with Babcock Borsig AG and other corporate giants tested his resolve. Personal life and business often collided—his relationships, his daughter’s influence, and the complexities of family dynamics playing pivotal roles in his decisions.

Through archives and personal reflections, Cutting My Own Path provides an intimate look into the mind of a financial maverick, a man who took risks, made fortunes, and never shied away from controversy. His MBA thesis on RiskArbitrage became his first book and his life's work, proving that calculated risk-taking, strategic foresight, and a deep understanding of financial structures can shape empires.

Thisbook is a memoir of an outlier, an outsider, a survivor, and an industry disruptor, charting the life of a man who never followed the beaten path—because he was too busy creating his own.