Warren Stephens Quotes

As an investment banker, I'm in the cross-flow of information and the changes that are taking place in capital markets.

In India, the investment banking industry is a little different. Overseas, the structures are very complicated, but not in India.

We know what we are. Our business is originating, distributing, and managing capital for individuals and institutions.

If you're just interested in the prestige of banking, that's not what's going to sustain you. You have to be interested in what we do: managing and originating capital, helping issuers and investors come together is great, bringing these companies to life.

We have a very competitive and profitable investment bank and strong asset management capabilities. We want to continue to build on all those businesses organically.

I was involved with Wells Fargo Bank as a consultant in the late 1960s and early 1970s, when I suggested to them that they develop a product that has become known as index funds.

I've nothing against Goldman Sachs. But Goldman Sachs isn't an investment bank. Goldman Sachs is a hedge fund. It's bigger than any hedge fund. It's more leveraged, to the power of three or five, than any hedge fund.

I think one of the key differentiators I bring to the table as a venture capitalist is a solid understanding of the public markets and how they operate.

Hedge funds, private equity and venture capital funds have played an important role in providing liquidity to our financial system and improving the efficiency of capital markets. But as their role has grown, so have the risks they pose.

There's more honor in investment management than in investment banking.

When investors, particularly investment bankers, talk about splitting up companies, there's a lot of discussion about multiple expansion, and the reality is multiple expansion is an outcome, not a strategy.

We don't think of ourselves as a regional investment bank. We think of ourselves as merchant bankers with clients all over the country.

Goldman in the '80s was like a priesthood, a monastic experience where you worked all the time but were incredibly dedicated to client services, to building and growing companies.

The threshold question: Will banks continue to exist? The answer is yes, because society will still need the two essential functions they provide: mobilization of capital from providers to users, and facilitation of payments for goods and services.

Somebody needs to position you and introduce you, but after that, most of the bankers get represented with their large clients; mostly investors are their long-term clients and an investee is a short term client.

I hated being a junior investment banker. I loved the research business, the wealth management business.

I founded SkyBridge - an alternative investment management company focused on seeding and partnering with emerging managers and mentoring Wall Street's next generation of Wall Street's entrepreneurs - in 2005.

Goldman Sachs saying they might be interested in such an investment. I'm familiar with the company. I've known the management, the current management, Jack Welch before Jeff Immelt. I've known him for decades.

I'm always investing. I'm constantly in talks with someone about some opportunity.

Big banks have long had private equity divisions that put up capital for deals too complex or risky for individual shareholders to finance.

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

My early work and publications centered around expanding on the analysis of life insurance in my dissertation and its relationship to investment banking.

Illiquid asset purchases are all about capital and encouraging private capital to come in.

Second of all, I don't think Wall Street is doing what it's supposed to be doing, even after the shameful performance of the last two years. They're are not allocating capital.

One of the great responsibilities that I have is to manage my assets wisely, so that they create value.