John Elkann Quotes

We're certainly interested in maximizing our return and doing it - we're interested in maximizing our return, but we're also interested in doing it over a long period of time and in doing it in a way that never endangers the firm from a survivability standpoint.

It is madness to make fortune the mistress of events, because by herself she is nothing and is ruled by prudence.

Only buy something that you'd be perfectly happy to hold if the market shut down for 10 years.

The real problem at the moment is that the banks - because of their existing culture, which is frankly anti-business, obsession with short-term trading profits, not focusing on the long term - are throttling the recovery of British industry.

There are good examples of companies - Coca-Cola is one - that invested before there was a huge market in countries, and I think that ended up playing out to their benefit for decades to come.

I'm not somebody who is going to build something for a few years, sell it, and then go off and just have fun.

The dominance of short-term perspectives has led to routine decisions in the markets that sacrifice the long-term buildup of genuine value in pursuit of artificial, short-term gains.

I have learned that nothing is certain except for the need to have strong risk management, a lot of cash, the willingness to invest even when the future is unclear, and great people.

It's important to choose initial investors who are not twitchy and rushing for an exit. Wall Street's quarter-by-quarter lens may make the CEO make sub-optimal long-term decisions.

If GE's strategy of investment in China is wrong, it represents a loss of a billion dollars, perhaps a couple of billion dollars. If it is right, it is the future of this company for the next century.

I'm not afraid of having big banks.

… there must be a strict supervision of all banking and credits and investments; there must be an end to speculation with other people's money

I am not going to opt for a short-term view for a 206-year-old institution like the SBI.

Whatever you do needs to be sustainable over time, and taking the money in the short term and taking it in a bubble - like buying an Internet stock in 2000 - may not be sustainable.

I want to make sure our company is in good hands: that it will be good for the country, for the stockholders.

In my 40-plus years as a venture capitalist, I have come to appreciate the certainty a healthy economy provides for businesses both large and small.

I think high turnover is definitively the investor's enemy, so you don't want to bring a high-turnover philosophy to this business. You want to have a long-term philosophy.

Bayern want a decade of success like Barca. That's OK if you have the money because it increases the possibility of success. But it's not guaranteed.

In Indian companies, people aren't too worried about the pace of growth as long as you're setting up a business which will survive for years.

Businesses look for stability; they look for direction.

One should never risk one's whole fortune unless supported by one's entire forces.

Cash combined with courage in a time of crisis is priceless.

Most people spend their lives building financial houses of straws, which are susceptible to wind, fire, rain and big bad wolves.

A big part of being strong financially is that you know where you are weak and take action to make sure you don't fall prey to the weakness. And we ALL are weak

What can you do in order to save your own banks?