David Bonderman Quotes

101 David Bonderman Quotes

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[In November 2008] When people are giving you debt that is grossly mis-priced, you opt to take it.
David Bonderman

[In September 2009] We have about $60 million of capital, half of it is uninvested and we are looking for opportunities.
David Bonderman

[In 2010] In 2007, your grandma could have done a leveraged buyout.
David Bonderman

[In February 2010] The FDIC has taken the view that they are terrified of private equity guys – or anybody else for that matter – getting control of a financial institution. Well, if you can’t do that, you can’t fix it.
David Bonderman

[In February 2010] Sooner or later the Feds will get the idea that the way you get capital into the system is to attract it, not to repel it, and make rules that reward capital and not the other way around.
David Bonderman

[In February 2010] The reason you are seeing so many announced bank failures and no equity coming in is because of misguided policies by the U.S. government.
David Bonderman

[In February 2010 on China.] They can react with more alacrity than we can… They need to have growth, need to create jobs, and they will do what it takes.
David Bonderman

[In February 2010] China right now is absolutely in a real estate bubble. They’ve been through three or four of them during the period of time we’ve been investing in China, and I have to tell you we’ve never invested in real estate in China at all.
David Bonderman

[In February 2010 on US investments.] Things are sort of fairly valued at the moment. Some deals are possible, but bargains are relatively rare.
David Bonderman

[In February 2010 on raising funds.] For the traditional buyout firms, money has been tough to come by at the moment. It’s not impossible, a few funds are being raised. But it’s slow and difficult and it won’t get better for a while.
David Bonderman



[In April 2011] Yesterday we completed a private sale, of a small, passive minority economic stake in the consolidated General Partner of TPG. We have chosen a private transaction as a path to provide capital to our firm.
David Bonderman

[In October 2011] Greece has to default, Argentina has shown you the way.
David Bonderman

[In October 2011 Greece needs to] Figure out a way to start collecting taxes.
David Bonderman

[In October 2011] I’m reasonably sanguine about China, but mostly because of China itself.
David Bonderman

[In October 2011] Will China’s GDP fall below 6 or 7%? Probably not.
David Bonderman

[In October 2011] Russia’s accession to the WTO is very important. Anything that can be done to increase Russian transparency for investors will be a big plus.
David Bonderman

[In October 2011] The underlying problem of Europe is not whether the ECB does this or this… The underlying problem is that the Europeans are in a different political and cultural place than the American’s and the Asian’s.
David Bonderman

[In October 2011] Europe doesn’t intrinsically care about growth.
David Bonderman

[In October 2011 on the Euro problems.] At the end of the day the Euro is the Euro. A bunch of bond holders don’t get paid. A bunch of banks get recapitalised. And Europe is still the high cost producer of everything.
David Bonderman

[In April 2012] What hasn’t changed is the value of brands...You can only buy J. Crew merchandise from J. Crew... The point is, you’re in one position. If you’re J.C. Penney and selling other people’s brands, you’re in a different position primarily because that person who controls the brand may choose to distribute in many different ways, including over the Internet, the Gilt Groupe. If you don’t have a brand and you’re dependent on someone’s else’s brand, you’re getting disintermediated by the distribution system.
David Bonderman



[In April 2013] One of the advantages of being on five person panel is that by the time you’re fourth or fifth, Leon [Black] and I actually don’t really have to say anything since it’s all been said already. Which probably fits with our intellectual makeup anyway.
David Bonderman

[In April 2013] I think we’ve all come to terms with the notion that Europe is not going to fall into the sea.
David Bonderman

[In April 2013] Nobody is panicked about Greece anymore. Nobody thinks the Europe is going to collapse.
David Bonderman

[In April 2013] Germans will do what Germans always do. That can be a problem of course.
David Bonderman

[On Europe in April 2013] It’s going to be a long time recovering.
David Bonderman

[In April 2013] When the US with it’s economic problems is safety, you know that you’re in for trouble.
David Bonderman

[In April 2013] Places like China have become in my view – oversold for all the woes of China.
David Bonderman

[In April 2013] Of all the places we operate, and we’re quite global - Japan is the only place in the world where there is less competition today then there was ten years ago. Lots of people have packed up and gone home.
David Bonderman

[In April 2013] I think that Japan is one of the most challenged places on the globe. Despite the fact that it’s the world’s third largest economy. There’s no culture of personal responsibility, there’s no culture of corporate responsibility – guys get indicted and they run the company from jail.
David Bonderman

[In April 2013] The demographics of Japan are terrible. Pretty soon everybody will be older than me. [Said by him when he was 70 years old.] And that’s pretty challenging.
David Bonderman



[On Japan in April 2013] They’re xenophobic so they don’t encourage other people to come to Japan and work. So over time I hate the place.
David Bonderman

[In April 2013] It’s a good time to be a seller. What’s unusual about this market is it’s a very good time to be a seller for all the reasons that Leon’s [Black] said. But it’s not a terrible time to be a buyer either if you’re cautious on pricing because of the nature of financing that’s available… It’s not a terrible time to be a buyer.
David Bonderman

[In April 2013] It’s pretty clear to everybody that what the EU did in Cyprus was the height of stupidity. It just makes no sense even if you don’t like the Russian depositors. It doesn’t make any sense to haircut depositors because it has major impacts for how people will treat the banks in other European countries. I think that the EU already recognizes that they made a mistake there.
David Bonderman

[In April 2013 on some of the horribly artificially high unemployment rates in some European countries.] All these countries have grey economies since people don’t want to pay taxes. Surprised about that huh? You have economies which are not as bad as you think they are from reading the headlines.
David Bonderman

[In April 2013] Europe is in a long-term transition. They’re living off of a thousand years of investment and they’re disinvesting.
David Bonderman

[In April 2013] Europeans don’t care about growth, no matter what they say… Europeans only care about social stability. They care about the social compact.
David Bonderman

[In April 2013] European’s aren’t trying to expand the pie – they’re arguing over who get’s what slice.
David Bonderman

[In April 2013] Europe isn’t going to fall apart.
David Bonderman

[In April 2013] Life is cyclical. Things will improve.
David Bonderman

[In April 2013] European banks were vastly more leveraged than the US banks. And the European governments understood that.
David Bonderman



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