Corporate Takeovers Quotes

Look, don't congratulate us when we buy a company, congratulate us when we sell it. Because any fool can overpay and buy a company, as long as money will last to buy it.

I've got stuff about airline mergers, which just shows that my stand-up is getting more insane by the minute.

I would just say, if Gov. Romney wants to give back all the money he's earned from bankrupting companies and laying off employees over his years at Bain, that I would be glad to listen to him. And I would bet you $10 - not $10,000 - that he would not take the offer.

When German companies take over firms in India, it is seen as normal. When an Indian buys one or two firms in Germany, that is something special.

I know the difference between venture capital[ism] and vulture capitalism. Venture capitalism is a good thing, comes in, gives that gap funding to help these companies get off and get started creating jobs, and work. But Mitt Romney and Bain Capital were involved with what I call vulture capitalism. And they walked into Gaffney and took over that photo album company for no other reason than to basically pick the bones clean. And those people lost their jobs.

I was vehemently against acquisitions. Now let's buy everything in sight. Well, that's a slight exaggeration. We are a little more strategic than that. But everything was on sale.

Back in the late 1980s I was programme editor of Channel Four's Business Daily. Day after day we broadcast the latest news, views and analysis for the City in a period when its visibility was as high as it has ever been.

M&A negotiations feel really fun. This is one of the biggest killers of companies, is they entertain acquisition conversations.

When I was 15 years old, I read an article about Ivan Boesky, the well-known takeover trader - turned out years later it was all on inside information! But before that came to light, he was very successful, very flamboyant. And I thought, 'This is what I want to do.' So I'm 15 years old, I decide I'm going to Wall Street.

In the 1980s, corporate raiders began mounting unfriendly takeovers of companies that could deliver higher returns to their shareholders - if they abandoned their other stakeholders.

As I have seen with a lot of companies I have covered, acquisition interest can be a heady experience, and not always in a good way.

The Internet Treasure companies tend to go public rather than get acquired, although there are clear exceptions, like Instagram, YouTube, Skype and PayPal.

[Corporate] takeovers are for the public good, but that's not why I do it. I do it to make money.

When I bought companies, it was done on trust, on a one-on-one basis, and with the intention of taking care of employees. Today, it's about who can bid the highest. There's no personal interest. It's a different world and one that an entrepreneur like me doesn't like much.

I literally went down to my car and thought, 'Oh my God, SAP bought Concur - maybe tomorrow they'll buy Dairy Queen.' It was the best thing that happened to me on the day I was named CEO of Oracle.