David Milne Quotes

Votorantim is attentive to opportunities that arise in both domestic and international markets to expand its businesses.

I'm not looking to... I'd like to build my company and make a bigger company always, but I think in the behind the scenes arena is where I'd prefer to spend my time.

If guys try to make a bigger company for the sake of size, they don't create value in most cases.

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

Mergers and acquisitions, we are always looking for that.

Success in M&As comes with executing with vigour along with the obvious right choices that you got to make.

As the CEO, I have to take care of the short term, mid term and the long term.

You're doing a major merger, you got to hope you didn't get it wrong. That's the view of any CEO.

The hardest thing was launching 'OK!' magazine; the easiest thing was Channel 5. 'The Express' was my defining moment because our turnover was less than £100m with 150 employees.

For Gazprom, 2015 is turning out auspiciously. We already see the possibility for additional investments in our investment program.

Growing Ineos has been a lot of fun.

There's a final exam in venture every four to six years. The scary thing is you need to get an 'A' in every discipline. You need to be on generational planning, need to be on great deal flow, need be on great outcomes, you need to be on great company building.

I am excited to join the Workday Board at an exciting time in the company's growth and look forward to leveraging my past experience as a technologist and entrepreneur to provide advice as they continue to look at new areas of growth.

The biggest challenge is to build the team and start the company, while hiring people, raising money, building a brand which has no history, all at the same time. You're doing a lot of things that in an established company are already done.

The Ranbaxy acquisition doesn't preclude us from making more large acquisitions. The important issue is whether we have the management bandwidth to handle the acquisition.

Traditional companies have to start looking into themselves to offer more opportunities in their companies by starting new subsidiaries and joint ventures.

Understand what you are acquiring and protect it at all costs. You are acquiring people and next-generation products. You are making an investment that together you can grow faster, make more profits, and take more market share.

Too many executives I've met over the years have the mentality of a bodybuilder; they've come to accept the idea that growth is synonymous with success.

As CEO of Aetna, I was a buyer of portfolio companies rather than a participant in the value creation process. From the end of the assembly line, what happened in manufacturing wasn't visible to me.

New products, new markets, new investors, and new ways of doing things are the lifeblood of growth. And while each innovation carries potential risk, businesses that don't innovate will eventually diminish.

Diversifying the business is definitely a good thing.

In pharma, we continuously look for acquisitions... if it makes strategic sense and if there is any value.

M&A at Microsoft is a team sport for the senior leadership group. They're all involved in it, and we all play different roles. My role is the first centralized business development role at Microsoft.

We're a company that's gone through many cycles and evolutions, and every time we have a major success, we double down and use the money from that to fund our initiatives and so forth.

There have been many very successful acquirers, where they've bought up companies, and they've grown their earnings very rapidly, and the stock has appreciated tremendously.