Alan Bond Quotes
120 Alan Bond Quotes
1 2 3
Among the things we should have anticipated was the massive blow-out in interest rates in the 1980s – we had the opportunity to restructure debt to equity ratios then, but we didn’t.
Alan Bond
Even when I was 21 I was a global player, always thinking of the bigger markets and the power you achieve if you can control the market.
Alan Bond
From the very start my business philosophy was to develop businesses with cash flow and to buy assets that we could substantially increase in value, for example buying a raw piece of land and developing it or having its zoning changed.
Alan Bond
We… thought ‘Why have Sky Channel only here when the bigger markets of the world are unfolding?’ So we went to the UK and established British Satellite Broadcasting.
Alan Bond
I have never ever thought of saying ‘enough is enough’.
Alan Bond
The money didn’t really matter to me…
Alan Bond
My life was not about money, it was about developing projects and achieving world market share, particularly as a pioneer in specific areas.
Alan Bond
I always wanted to give people the chance to succeed beyond their expectations by showing them the way – how to rise way beyond what they believed were their limits.
Alan Bond
[When being in prison for the very first time] I knew from that point there is only one way you can go, and that’s up!
Alan Bond
You… wonder what went wrong and why you are in prison when other people are still walking the streets freely after having failed in their business and gone bankrupt, or when company directors have lost billions of shareholders’ dollars.
Alan Bond
Look what happened to AMP in Australia when in two years to mid-2003 more than $15 billion of shareholders’ funds were written off the value of the company. I ask, could they survive a Sultan-type inquiry after that? Probably not.
Alan Bond
Supposed friends… seem to think that because I have been to prison that I must still walk around wearing a suit emblazoned with arrows.
Alan Bond
I have paid a high price for what happened…
Alan Bond
I… felt for the poor pit ponies – little Welsh ponies bred specially to work in the mines – that were trudging along underground, heads down, dragging the heavily laden trolleys… They never saw the light of day, something a six year old struggled to comprehend.
Alan Bond
Dad started working underground when he was 12. His first job was as a lamp man, carrying the special lamps and birds in cages to check on the gas levels while the men worked.
Alan Bond
[On his mother’s money management after they moved from English to Australia when he was 11 years old due to the health of his father needing a warmer climate] From the outset she very wisely invested any spare money we had in stocks and shares, and later she invested 1,500 pounds in a block of land at Melville, on the highway leading into Perth.
Alan Bond
[On being a signwriter in one of his first jobs] The one thing about my work was that I was very quick. Some people are slow and methodical signwriters but I would splash it on and get it done.
Alan Bond
It was a tough school run by a tough master, but there were some real lessons there for me.
Alan Bond
[His dry cleaning boss in his early years] He said to me one day: ‘Alan, I want to tell you something; you earn 7 percent on your money and you sleep well. But if you earn 12 percent on your money, you eat well. It is up to you, how much you want to eat.’
Alan Bond
[His dry cleaning boss whilst building another block of units] He said to me ‘If you build a straight line with no indents then you need fewer bricks, so you build it cheaper. If you don’t have overhangs and only fit gutters then you save on that much timber on the eaves. And if you have bricks on the outside and bricks on the inside, there’s no maintenance. Bricks are very good.’
Alan Bond
All the bloody flats he built were just brick walls – no maintenance, no painting and no plastering. He’d put down parquetry flooring. He also explained that as windows were very expensive, to make sure to only use the standard size, and to make sure the sill comes with the window because then you don’t pay for the sill. He built many blocks of flats around Perth, keeping all of them as rental properties.
Alan Bond
It was Mr Lessheim who really taught me about building projects – how to borrow the money, collect the rents and ensure your capital assets grew.
Alan Bond
One day I went around to measure up a property for a job [For sign-painting] and was arrested for trespassing. It turned out that in my haste I was clambering all over the wrong bloody building.
Alan Bond
[To the biggest brickworks in Perth] You have all these bricks stockpiled in the yard that are going to take a long time to be used, so why not give them to me on credit so I can put them into a building. I’ll pay you for them as soon as I get the money out.
Alan Bond
[On dealing with Leonard George Casley of Hutt River Province] He had a glass eye, and I can’t tell you how difficult it was dealing with him because you never knew which eye was looking at you. One minute you’d think it was his left eye, and then you’d say to yourself ‘oops, no, it’s the other one’. It was very disconcerting.
Alan Bond
I was a risk taker, but what many people didn’t realise was that I only took on calculated risks.
Alan Bond
I always wanted our money to be working for us and not sitting around.
Alan Bond
I had more than $25 million in net assets when I was 28.
Alan Bond
There were no real limitations when it came to where you could go in business, so long as you were prepared to take on the task and plan it properly.
Alan Bond
I’ve had to have a vision of how a project could be developed, be it a mine in the middle of a desert or a property project. For me it was like looking into a crystal ball.
Alan Bond
It’s very well to criticise other people, but if you want to change thing sthen you’d better get in there and do some of the work yourself.
Alan Bond
You must be acquainted with the assets you are managing and get a real feel for them.
Alan Bond
You can’t buy or beat the elements, you can only match them.
Alan Bond
I think sailing reaches out and gives you a new perspective on life; it provides a great balance. It’s a humbling experience when you realise that you are far from the security of land and home, as the unchallenged master of your own destiny.
Alan Bond
I have learnt that you’ll never beat the ocean. It can never be tamed. You can only utilise its strengths, and you must accept that, even when it is having a weak moment, it might change its mind and rapidly come at you like a wounded bull.
Alan Bond
Most Americans thought we were little more than a bunch of cowboys who lived in the outback and survived by cooking food on barbeques.
Alan Bond
Many people need encouragement to believe in themselves, to be told that they can do the impossible…
Alan Bond
The seed that is unseen below the ground needs to be nurtured daily until it springs into life and then bursts into bloom.
Alan Bond
Don’t worry about the money. Let’s get to the deal.
Alan Bond
The question of fear of failure doesn’t enter into the equation for me.
Alan Bond
1 2 3
Return from Alan Bond Quotes to Quoteswise.com