Private Equity Quotes

• Commodities tend to zig when the equity markets zag.

  Jim Rogers

  Active Management, Commodity, Equity

  "Hot Commodities: How Anyone Can Invest Profitably in the World's Best Market". Book by Jim Rogers, March 27, 2007.

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• It's clear to me when you do private equity well, you're making companies more efficient and helping them grow and become more profitable. That success means our investors - such as public pension funds - benefit, which contributes to the economic wealth of society.

  David Rubenstein

  Mean, Benefits, Helping

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• People used to think that private equity was basically just a compensation scheme, but it is much more about making companies more efficient.

  David Rubenstein

  Thinking, People, Used

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• Not all private equity people are evil. Only some.

  Paul Krugman

  People, Evil, Equity

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• The problem of how we finance the welfare state should not obscure a separate issue: if each person thinks he has an inalienable right to welfare, no matter what happens to the world, that's not equity, it's just creating a society where you can't ask anything of people.

  Jacques Delors

  Thinking, Creating, Issues

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• I think this is also a great time to invest in private equity, helping companies grow from the ground up.

  Jim Rogers

  Thinking, Helping, Equity

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• The role of private equity as fiduciaries is certainly to make money.

  Thomas G. Stemberg

  Roles, Making Money, Equity

  "Two campaigns, two definitions of Romney's role at Bain" by Leigh Ann Caldwell, www.cbsnews.com. June 2, 2012.

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• I've heard that one-half of the students at elite schools want to go into private equity or hedge funds. They want to keep up with their age cohorts at Goldman. This can't possibly end well in terms of meeting these expectations.

  Charlie Munger

  School, Expectations, Age

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• Private-equity and hedge-fund guys typically come into a situation of mediocrity, where rapid change may result in a profit.

  Austin Ligon

  Guy, May, Mediocrity

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• Private equity firms aren't necessarily evil by definition. There are many stories of successful turnarounds fueled by private equity, often involving multiple floundering businesses that are rolled into a single entity, eliminating duplicative overhead.

  Matt Taibbi

  Successful, Evil, Stories

  "Greed and Debt: The True Story of Mitt Romney and Bain Capital". www.rollingstone.com. August 29, 2012.

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• In the 1930s, there was a stretch where you could borrow more against the real estate than you could sell it for. I think that's what's going on in today's private-equity world.

  Charlie Munger

  Real, Thinking, World

  Charlie Munger's comments on Berkshire Hathaway at the 2006 Berkshire Hathaway Annual Meeting, www.tilsonfunds.com. May 6, 2006.

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• It's quite astonishing how much money people make in the hedge fund business and in the private equity field, and how well-off affluent families really are.

  Kenneth Rogoff

  People, Fields, Affluent

  Source: www.spiegel.de

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• Private equity has been the purview of super wealthy individuals and institutions.

  Michael Lee-Chin

  Individual, Institutions, Wealthy

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• Private equity has absolutely no reason to exist. The private equity holder has all the upside and the banks all the downside.

  Nassim Nicholas Taleb

  Business, Finance, Reason

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• Banks don't want certain asset classes, and that's created opportunities for private equity, hedge funds, Silicon Valley. In this case I think he was referring to some of the European banks shedding assets, and the big buyers are probably not going to be big American banks. Someone like Blackstone may have a very good chance to buy those assets, leverage them, borrow up a little bit, and do something good there.

  Jamie Dimon

  Opportunity, Thinking, Class

  "Jamie Dimon on Finance: 'Who Owns the Future?'". Interview with John Micklethwait, www.bloomberg.com. March 1, 2016.

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• If private-equity firms are as good at remaking companies as they claim, they don't need tax loopholes to make money.

  James Surowiecki

  Needs, Making Money, Claims

  "Private Inequity". www.newyorker.com. January 30, 2012.

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• The lingo used in the space is so arcane and out of date that investors have no context for the discussions. The failure to establish a clear, effective communication system has been the biggest sin private equity has committed.

  Bob Rice

  Communication, Space, Sin

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• Whether a tops-down or bottoms-up investor in bonds, stocks, or private equity, the standard analysis tends to judge an investor or his firm on the basis of how the bullish or bearish aspects of the cycle were managed.

  Bill Gross

  Judging, Analysis, Aspect

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• A good default, like Portugal or Greece, would be very good for the private equity business.

  David Bonderman

  Would Be, Portugal, Default

  "TPG's Bonderman Sees Mega LBO Coming - $10-15B Deal". SuperReturn conference in Berlin, www.businessinsider.com. March 04, 2011.

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• It's very hard for individual inventors to get paid. For the same reason that private equity is valuable - broadly, that's a good thing - in the case of patents, many that own them aren't in a good position to take the next step.

  Nathan Myhrvold

  Next, Steps, Patents

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• Venture capital has peaked in terms of its appetite, in terms of how much money it wants to put in. So now private equity funds are piling in. Primarily because interest rates are virtually zero so there's no fixed income play and they're not moving around.

  Kevin Kinsella

  Zero, Moving, Play

  Source: www.sfgate.com

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• I see myself as a private-equity investor that helps rebuild companies. Restructuring is a cottage industry in that there aren't that many serious practitioners.

  Wilbur Ross

  Cottages, Serious, Helping

  "I Am American Business", www.cnbc.com.

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• We live in a global market and money's fungible and hedge fund private equity is looking for momentum plays, and there ain't no momentum plays in bonds, right? When the interest rates were spiking up or down, well they never really spike down they do spike up though. Something's got to happen, there's got to be motion, the dice has to be rolling on the board, and if it's not then they're not going to play because they're not going to get the adrenaline rush from looking at... you know, money markets fund interest rates or bond interests or whatever. It's got to be sexy.

  Kevin Kinsella

  Sexy, Play, Rolling

  Source: www.sfgate.com

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• Wall Street, with its army of brokers, analysts, and advisers funneling trillions of dollars into mutual funds, hedge funds, and private equity funds, is an elaborate fraud.

  Michael Lewis

  Wall, Army, Dollars

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• Let's face it, we're skunk drunk and it's because of money. It's almost like we all need to enter Betty Ford Clinic 2.0 together. This time, it's not stock market money but private equity, M&A, VCs and to some degree the reckless abandonment of logic by some advertisers who are perpetuating what is sure to end badly when the economy turns. Hubris is back my friends.

  Steve Rubel

  Drunk, Together, Degrees

  "Is the bottom about to fall out of Web 2.0?" by Jemima Kiss, www.theguardian.com. October 30, 2007.

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