Wilbur Ross quotes

Wilbur Ross is an American businessman and investor known for restructuring failed companies. His expertise in distressed asset management earned him the nickname "King of Bankruptcy." He served as the U.S. Secretary of Commerce, playing a major role in economic policy. Here are 14 of his quotes:

Generally speaking, companies get into bankruptcy as a kind of meritocracy. Somebody made some sort of big mistake, to get into bankruptcy, and very often, a part of the mistake is too much leverage.

Wilbur Ross

The other thing that was fascinating to me, was there was not a single hint of a protester anywhere there during the whole time we were there. Not one guy with a bad placard.

Wilbur Ross

I am not anti-trade. I am pro-trade, but I am pro-sensible trade, not trade that is to the disadvantage of the American worker and to the American manufacturing community.

Wilbur Ross

There is no evidence that more regulation makes things better. The most highly regulated industry in America is commercial banking, and that didn't save those institutions from making terrible decisions.

Wilbur Ross

Banking, I would argue, is the most heavily regulated industry in the world. Regulations don't solve things. Supervision solves things.

Wilbur Ross

Each weekend I play at least one and maybe two sets of tennis a day. My doubles team was in the finals recently at my tennis club in Palm Beach and lost a tiebreaker after a three-hour match. I must confess, by the end of the three hours, I was relieved it was over.

Wilbur Ross

If you want to do something to destroy consumer spending, just eat away at the middle class because the other problem we have is the structural problem of middle class America.

Wilbur Ross

The one term I don't like to be called is a 'vulture.' Because to me, a vulture is a kind of asset-stripper that eats dead flesh off the bones of a dead creature. Our bird should be the phoenix, the bird that reinvents itself, recreates itself from its ashes. And that's much closer to what it is that we really do.

Wilbur Ross

Between the Community Redevelopment Act, requiring banks to make what I would call very weak loans, and specific quotas that the Congress imposed on Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, that created the market demand that really led to the subprime phenomenon.

Wilbur Ross

Shale gas, if left to flourish, could create several hundred thousand more jobs.

Wilbur Ross

Ships are a strange kind of commodity because they're very lumpy, very big individual units, but they're commodities.

Wilbur Ross

I see myself as a private-equity investor that helps rebuild companies. Restructuring is a cottage industry in that there aren't that many serious practitioners.

Wilbur Ross