Marc Lasry Quotes
101 Marc Lasry Quotes (Avenue Capital Group)
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Sooner or later, logic wins out.
Marc Lasry
We were in the right place at the right time.
Marc Lasry
You can never time a bottom. What you can do is time a cycle and five years from now, people will say – ‘Why didn’t I buy?’
Marc Lasry
What has made [Warren] Buffett successful, what has made other people very, very good, is their ability to see things in the available data that others don’t see.
Marc Lasry
I look at myself as a value investor.
Marc Lasry
I’m trying to constantly find mispriced investments and add value in a situation.
Marc Lasry
We are constantly searching, trying to find value, typically in troubled companies… In contrast, most investors try to find companies that have no problems.
Marc Lasry
We look at the world very differently than most investors.
Marc Lasry
I don’t want to hear how great the investment is – I want to hear how we could get hurt.
Marc Lasry
Once we know that our downside is protected, then we look at the upside potential.
Marc Lasry
A leveraged portfolio forces you to act irrationally when markets are irrational, as opposed to acting rationally when markets are irrational.
Marc Lasry
The more your focus is on liquidity, the more you’re willing to sell because liquidity is paramount. Whereas, if your focus is on the quality of the investment and not solely liquidity, then you’ll do very well…
Marc Lasry
[In February 2012] People have a natural aversion to investing in companies in bankruptcy.
Marc Lasry
In business, you quickly learn that there aren’t that many people who impress you right away.
Marc Lasry
Every investment has a risk. Ultimately, it’s the assessment of those risks and having the confidence that what you think will happen ultimately does happen.
Marc Lasry
Everybody sees the same situations, but there are only a few who end up investing and even fewer of those who do well.
Marc Lasry
[In May 2012] Why do you need liquidity? What you’re doing is you’re investing in something you believe you’re buying at a huge discount. If what you’re looking for is something to trade, then you need the liquidity.
Marc Lasry
The worst of times for everybody else is the best of times for us.
Marc Lasry
People think we got to $20 billion overnight, but it wasn’t as easy as it seems…
Marc Lasry
[In February 2011] You need to understand how a company’s going to operate in the bankruptcy process and how that’s going to affect its ongoing operations. You’ve got to mesh many different disciplines into one. That’s our edge. We have the expertise to understand those different disciplines better than others.
Marc Lasry
We did our research and we invested in specific credits where we were confident we fully understood the downside – not only the downside.
Marc Lasry
[In February 2011] We invest when we have conviction in the credit and we believe it’s cheap. If it gets cheaper, then we buy more. We were investing where we thought we were right on credit at the end of 2008 and 2009, unlike others who were somewhat paralysed by the turmoil in the markets, or simply just didn’t have the cash. In retrospect, we may not have invested at the absolute bottom of the market, but we were close.
Marc Lasry
[In 2007 on working as a UPS truck driver and considering not going to law school.] These drivers make a lot of money. I thought I could get into management. But my wife didn’t want me to be a truck driver. She wanted me to go to law school.
Marc Lasry
[On trade creditors being most concerned about recovering the cost of their merchandise in bankruptcy situations.] So as long as they got back their cost and could book a profit, it made sense for them to sell.
Marc Lasry
[On the Robert M Bass Group] Once we got to the Bass organization, we realized it was a pretty unique place. It’s difficult now to fathom, but back then the only people who really had capital were wealthy family offices.
Marc Lasry
I met all these exceptionally smart guys at Bass. David Bonderman, Jim Coulter, Tom Barrack, and many others. It was a phenomenal period, and I quickly realized I was dealing with guys who are off-the-wall smart and really good guys – nice, smart people.
Marc Lasry
You know, when you look back on it, I left what probably was one of the best jobs in America, running money for one of the world’s first billionaires. And back then there weren’t that many. But I don’t regret it.
Marc Lasry
[On him starting Amroc with his sister Sonia Gardner a forerunner to Avenue Capital Group] It was just the two of us and a secretary when we started – we were both working 14-hour days, 7 days a week. We slowly built one of the largest private distressed debt brokerage firms that existed at the time, and expanded Amroc to more than 50 employees.
Marc Lasry
At the same time, for five years, we also ran our own money, just my sister and me.
Marc Lasry
[On Amroc] We were viewed as the Merrill Lynch of the trade-claim world. We were the biggest and most active player in that market and everybody knew who we were.
Marc Lasry
People think we got to $20 billion overnight, but it wasn’t as easy as it seems. We had the background. We had good returns. We had the infrastructure, and we had good people. And, importantly, we had high-quality, stable, long-term investors that allowed us to raise money in a difficult fundraising environment. We were also lucky that we were in the right place at the right time.
Marc Lasry
We are constantly searching, trying to find value, typically in troubled companies. And then we try to buy those assets at a discount. In contrast, most investors try to find companies that have no problems. And, when companies have problems, people get nervous. We look at the world very differently than most investors.
Marc Lasry
If you happen to be secured creditor and have the first $25 million, then you’re safe. If you’re at the bottom of the capital structure and there’s $900 million ahead of you before you get paid, it’s a different story. It’s fine to be an unsecured creditor if you believe the value of the company is enough to pay off all the unsecured creditors in the capital structure.
Marc Lasry
Say you have liabilities of $1 billion, $200 million of secured debt, $300 million of senior unsecured debt, and $500 million of subordinated debt. If the company is worth only $200 million, as an unsecured creditor you’ll walk away empty-handed. It all goes to the secured investors. But if the company’s worth $500 million, then the secured will receive par and the senior unsecured may also get a full recovery. You have to analyze the value of the company, and then compare it to the liabilities to determine where you are in the stack and what your remaining values may be.
Marc Lasry
I don’t want to hear how great the investment is – I want to hear how we could get hurt. Once we know that our downside is protected, then we look at the upside potential.
Marc Lasry
We’re conservative. Sometimes we find ourselves alone in buying the debt of a certain credit.
Marc Lasry
What you’ll find is that there are far fewer folks in our space than there are in the equity space.
Marc Lasry
What has made [Warren] Buffett successful, what has made other people very, very good, is their ability to see things in the available data that others don’t see. It’s the same thing in the distressed world. The information is all public, but I think we do a better job of analysing the intricacies and assessing the risks.
Marc Lasry
We have exceptional investment professionals with many years of experience in the business, and ultimately, that’s the reason we’ve done well.
Marc Lasry
I look at myself as a value investor. I’m trying to constantly find mispriced investments and add value in a situation. For Avenue, investing means having conviction in your work and companies where you invest, even when the Street has written them off.
Marc Lasry
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