Life As a Distressed Debt Player In Four Quotes Or Less
"It's like the song, looking for love in all the wrong places. We're looking for yield in all the wrong places."-- Brent Williams, managing director with Chanin Capital Partners.
"My wife says it's weird that I get happy when we go into a recession."-- Adam Rogoff, partner in Cadwalader, Wickersham and Taft's restructuring department.
"Many times I've tried explaining what I do to my friends and girlfriend, but many times they end up changing the subject." -- Robert Honeywell, of counsel, Greenberg Taurig, adamant there is a lot of drama involved in restructurings, particularly in Latin America.
"You need people with a proven track record who can cut costs and increase revenues. These people are very rare...[You also] need intestinal fortitude. You must have people who can handle the stress. People who are a bit weird. My mother must have dropped me on my head."-- Peter Cuneo, vice chairman of Marvel Enterprises, on getting the right person in for a restructuring.
Another Forrest Gump Sighting
Eleven years after fictional film star Forrest Gump appeared in Vietnam, the world ping pong championship and The White House (three times), he popped up in the W Hotel in Guillermo Jasson's presentation on distressed activity in Latin America. In explaining the unpredictable nature of restructurings, Jasson, Morgan Stanley's head of Latam M&A and restructurings, flashed a slide of Gump and said restructurings are "like a box of chocolates...you never know what you're going to get."