Michael Otto Quotes

When you buy a company that's been on its butt you raise a lot of money, you instantly put new management in place, but that's the end of the glory for three to five years, grinding it out one day after the other.

When I became CEO, Puma was bankrupt on paper.

You don't get a chance to buy a company like NBCUniversal unless it's not doing well.

It's difficult to fix a truly broken business, but when it happens, the returns can be extraordinary.

Venture capitalists buy minority positions in young companies they think will grow quickly; buy-out investors buy most or all of companies they think can be turned around by fixing a few basic things.

If Wal-Mart invests a billion dollars and others invest $100 million, Wal-Mart is going to grow more.

Towards the end of 2005, Ineos acquired Innovene, the petrochemicals arm of BP, for $9 billion. It quadrupled the size of Ineos overnight and brought with it some of the world's largest industrial sites.

You have to spend a lot to make a lot. It's not like I'm sitting on top of a pile of money.

If a rich person invests in a business, either directly or through stock purchases, it means business can grow and hire more people.

How do you make money? Spinoffs, split-ups, liquidations, mergers and acquisitions.

And I was asked if I would come and help with the recovery of this great British company, Cable and Wireless, and I'm delighted to become part of the new and very talented management that have been brought in to that company as well.

I put £150,000 into the stage production of Grease and have got back £1.5 million so far. It has been a fantastic success.

If you look at my business record, I basically love to do turn-arounds. That's where I made all of my money.

I'm not trying to change an image, I'm just trying to make sure that the facts match the image. The facts are basically that I'm a builder. I have not dissembled any company nor split up any companies, nor do I ever buy any companies with that intent.

I suspect that we might actually start selling some records with these artists in about 10 years. Some the people who invested, they're a little tight-because it's a lot of money to start up a company.

China is littered with the wrecks of failed joint ventures. Investors are moving toward wholly-owned subsidiaries.

Just as water is a key ingredient to growth on the farm, capital is required for businesses to thrive.

I got an album concept called 'Exit Strategy,' that might be one of my last ones. It's a term they use in business when you build companies. You create an exit strategy as you make a company. You don't wait till you're five years in it; you create a exit strategy as you make the company.

Let it be understood that I am interested in making multimillion-dollar business deals.

I took a risk and invested in SM Mall of Asia because I wanted to create something that could contribute to Philippine tourism growth.

We are reluctant to do these bigger acquisitions that are then integrated, especially if they are committed to a certain product that they want to build that we can't guarantee we will keep evolving.

There is a reason companies raise money from investors, which is to invest in growth.

The most dangerous thing for an entrepreneur to do is to actually go into a business that he does not understand fully.

Port investments entail a lot of money, and having a partner who can share the risk makes a lot of sense. Often, it makes sense to have a local partner.

Professional services industries like finance, consulting, and legal services are, by definition, meta-industries. That is, they serve to help large companies raise money, buy and sell each other, reorganize, implement new systems, conduct complex transactions, and so forth.