Distressed Investing Quotes

Yet I had invested nothing up front. It was just a matter of recognizing that one person’s distress is another person’s opportunity.   When

Scelza also discovered that cultures differ dramatically in how much parental investment men typically devote to their children. In cultures with heavy male parental investment, men showed an even stronger endorsement of sexual infidelity as more distressing than emotional infidelity; more than 90 percent in those cultures, such as the Himba, chose sexual infidelity as more jealousy inducing. The more investment men make, the more important it becomes for them to ensure that they are the actual genetic fathers, at least from an evolutionary perspective. In short, cultures vary in how jealous men get about a partner’s sexual infidelity, but it’s not random or arbitrary cultural variability. It is theoretically predictable variability based on how much men invest in their children, which in turn corresponds to the costs they would incur by investing in a child who might just be their rival’s.

Utah ranks number one in incidents of depression and suicides, nationwide. One study reported: “In Utah, 14 percent of adults and adolescents reported experiencing severe psychological distress, and 10 percent said they’d had a major depressive episode in the past year. Bad mental health days come three times a month for those living in Utah.”i Incidentally, Utah leads the nation in fraud (see “God is Not a Good Investment Advisor,” chapter 8) and pornography consumptionii

This state of affairs, which bodes ill for the future, causes Us great distress and anguish. But We cherish this hope: that distrust and selfishness among nations will eventually be overcome by a stronger desire for mutual collaboration and a heightened sense of solidarity. We hope that the developing nations will take advantage of their geographical proximity to one another to organize on a broader territorial base and to pool their efforts for the development of a given region. We hope that they will draw up joint programs, coordinate investment funds wisely, divide production quotas fairly, and exercise management over the marketing of these products. We also hope that multilateral and broad international associations will undertake the necessary work of organization to find ways of helping needy nations, so that these nations may escape from the fetters now binding them; so that they themselves may discover the road to cultural and social progress, while remaining faithful to the native genius of their land.

Another roadblock to opting for an insurance cover amongst the customers is that in case they do not claim, they get nothing back in return to the premium they invested. Hence they consider insurance to be a dead investment. They need to be educated that insurance is more like a social cause. Insurance by its very principles is collection of money by many to pay to a few, in their times of distress. Rather than considering it to be a passive investment, it should be treated as an active social participation where you are securing yourself as well as helping others in their direst times of need. Then it has a higher meaning and everyone feels good to be a part of it.

An unexpected breakup can cause considerable psychological distress. The social pain has been associated with a twentyfold higher risk of developing depression in the coming year. It's important to lean on family and friends for support. You'll find that brain activity in the craving centers will have decreased significantly after about ten weeks." "Actually, it's been almost two weeks and I don't think of him at all," Layla offered. "Then you weren't truly emotionally invested in that relationship," Charu Auntie said. "Or you're a psychopath." "Definitely a psychopath." Daisy sliced furiously, decimating the onion as tears poured down her cheeks. "She didn't feel anything when she stole the pakoras from my lunch kit in sixth grade." Charu Auntie balanced the basket on one hip and adjusted her glasses. "Distraction and self-care are important to prevent a craving response in the ventral tegmental area, the nucleus accumbens, and orbitofrontrontal/prefrontal cortex." "I think she's saying, in her oddly complicated way, that she thinks you should hook up with fuckboy Danny," Daisy said. "Too bad the sexy beast upstairs is such a piece of-" "Shhh.

Was this luck, or was it more than that? Proving skill is difficult in venture investing because, as we have seen, it hinges on subjective judgment calls rather than objective or quantifiable metrics. If a distressed-debt hedge fund hires analysts and lawyers to scrutinize a bankrupt firm, it can learn precisely which bond is backed by which piece of collateral, and it can foresee how the bankruptcy judge is likely to rule; its profits are not lucky. Likewise, if an algorithmic hedge fund hires astrophysicists to look for patterns in markets, it may discover statistical signals that are reliably profitable. But when Perkins backed Tandem and Genentech, or when Valentine backed Atari, they could not muster the same certainty. They were investing in human founders with human combinations of brilliance and weakness. They were dealing with products and manufacturing processes that were untested and complex; they faced competitors whose behaviors could not be forecast; they were investing over long horizons. In consequence, quantifiable risks were multiplied by unquantifiable uncertainties; there were known unknowns and unknown unknowns; the bracing unpredictability of life could not be masked by neat financial models. Of course, in this environment, luck played its part. Kleiner Perkins lost money on six of the fourteen investments in its first fund. Its methods were not as fail-safe as Tandem’s computers. But Perkins and Valentine were not merely lucky. Just as Arthur Rock embraced methods and attitudes that put him ahead of ARD and the Small Business Investment Companies in the 1960s, so the leading figures of the 1970s had an edge over their competitors. Perkins and Valentine had been managers at leading Valley companies; they knew how to be hands-on; and their contributions to the success of their portfolio companies were obvious. It was Perkins who brought in the early consultants to eliminate the white-hot risks at Tandem, and Perkins who pressed Swanson to contract Genentech’s research out to existing laboratories. Similarly, it was Valentine who drove Atari to focus on Home Pong and to ally itself with Sears, and Valentine who arranged for Warner Communications to buy the company. Early risk elimination plus stage-by-stage financing worked wonders for all three companies. Skeptical observers have sometimes asked whether venture capitalists create innovation or whether they merely show up for it. In the case of Don Valentine and Tom Perkins, there was not much passive showing up. By force of character and intellect, they stamped their will on their portfolio companies.

It’s not always so easy, it turns out, to identify your core personal projects. And it can be especially tough for introverts, who have spent so much of their lives conforming to extroverted norms that by the time they choose a career, or a calling, it feels perfectly normal to ignore their own preferences. They may be uncomfortable in law school or nursing school or in the marketing department, but no more so than they were back in middle school or summer camp. I, too, was once in this position. I enjoyed practicing corporate law, and for a while I convinced myself that I was an attorney at heart. I badly wanted to believe it, since I had already invested years in law school and on-the-job training, and much about Wall Street law was alluring. My colleagues were intellectual, kind, and considerate (mostly). I made a good living. I had an office on the forty-second floor of a skyscraper with views of the Statue of Liberty. I enjoyed the idea that I could flourish in such a high-powered environment. And I was pretty good at asking the “but” and “what if” questions that are central to the thought processes of most lawyers. It took me almost a decade to understand that the law was never my personal project, not even close. Today I can tell you unhesitatingly what is: my husband and sons; writing; promoting the values of this book. Once I realized this, I had to make a change. I look back on my years as a Wall Street lawyer as time spent in a foreign country. It was absorbing, it was exciting, and I got to meet a lot of interesting people whom I never would have known otherwise. But I was always an expatriate. Having spent so much time navigating my own career transition and counseling others through theirs, I have found that there are three key steps to identifying your own core personal projects. First, think back to what you loved to do when you were a child. How did you answer the question of what you wanted to be when you grew up? The specific answer you gave may have been off the mark, but the underlying impulse was not. If you wanted to be a fireman, what did a fireman mean to you? A good man who rescued people in distress? A daredevil? Or the simple pleasure of operating a truck? If you wanted to be a dancer, was it because you got to wear a costume, or because you craved applause, or was it the pure joy of twirling around at lightning speed? You may have known more about who you were then than you do now. Second, pay attention to the work you gravitate to. At my law firm I never once volunteered to take on an extra corporate legal assignment, but I did spend a lot of time doing pro bono work for a nonprofit women’s leadership organization. I also sat on several law firm committees dedicated to mentoring, training, and personal development for young lawyers in the firm. Now, as you can probably tell from this book, I am not the committee type. But the goals of those committees lit me up, so that’s what I did. Finally, pay attention to what you envy. Jealousy is an ugly emotion, but it tells the truth. You mostly envy those who have what you desire. I met my own envy after some of my former law school classmates got together and compared notes on alumni career tracks. They spoke with admiration and, yes, jealousy, of a classmate who argued regularly before the Supreme Court. At first I felt critical. More power to that classmate! I thought, congratulating myself on my magnanimity. Then I realized that my largesse came cheap, because I didn’t aspire to argue a case before the Supreme Court, or to any of the other accolades of lawyering. When I asked myself whom I did envy, the answer came back instantly. My college classmates who’d grown up to be writers or psychologists. Today I’m pursuing my own version of both those roles.

We all need affirmation, but accepting accolades in an undisciplined way can lead to grandiosity, an inflated view of yourself and your cause. People may invest you with magic, and you can begin to think you have it. The higher the level of distress, the greater are people’s hopes and expectations that you can provide deliverance. They may put too much faith in you.

Ben Graham–style bargain equities, we may become quite uncomfortable at times, especially if the market value of the portfolio declined precipitously. We might look at the portfolio and conclude that every investment could be worth zero. After all, we may have a mediocre business run by mediocre management, with assets that could be squandered. Investing in deep value equities therefore requires faith in the law of large numbers—that historical experience of market-beating returns in deep value stocks and the fact that we own a diversified portfolio will combine to yield a satisfactory result over time. This conceptually sound view becomes seriously challenged in times of distress. By contrast, an investor in high-quality businesses that are conservatively financed and run by shareholder-friendly managements may fall back on the well-founded belief that no matter how low the stock prices of those companies fall, the businesses will survive the downturn and recover value over time.

If a 20% or 30% drop in the market value of your equity holdings (such as BPL) is going to produce emotional or financial distress, you should simply avoid common stock type investments. In the words of the poet—Harry Truman—“If you can’t stand the heat, stay out of the kitchen.” It is preferable, of course, to consider the problem before you enter the “kitchen.

As an investor, you have one powerful way to keep from getting distressed by devilish Mr. Market: Ignore him. Just buy and hold one of the broad-based index funds that

Psychologists also remind us that investors are far more distressed by losses than they are delighted by gains. This leads people to discard their winners if they need cash and hold onto their losers because they don’t want to recognize or admit that they made a mistake. Remember: Selling winners means paying capital gains taxes while selling losers can produce tax deductions. So if you need to sell, sell your losers. At least that way you get a tax deduction rather than an increase in your tax liability.

LEDERHOSEN BACK IN THE SUITCASE – THEY WEREN’T MUCH HELP – I’M READY to leave. I started my journey in the most gorgeous of architectures in Jerusalem, and I end it in the most ravished of places, in Jenin. I started with Kings, David and Herod, and I end with Haifa Refugees. When I started the journey I was awed, when I end it I’m dismayed; when I started my journey laughter was my companion, when I end it a tear joins me; when I started this journey hope was my neighbor, when I end it despair stares me in the face. Witnessing the tremendous investments and endless attempts of the Europeans, not to mention the Germans, all geared to undermine the Jews in this land, in Israel, was an extremely unsettling experience. Being showered with love by the Arabs, just because they thought I was an Aryan, a German, was very discomforting. Watching the Jews and seeing how powerless they are, even now that they have their own state, was distressing. If logic is any guide, Israel will not survive. Besieged by hate from without and from within, no land can survive for very long. Miraculously, the Jews have built one of the most sophisticated, intense, beautiful countries of our time, but what are they doing to keep it? They hate themselves, they belie themselves, they are full of fears and many of them rush to get another passport; they want to go back to Poland, to Austria, to Germany – lands where their forefathers were hunted down and killed. And what am I doing? Just the same: I am going back to Germany. Am I a Jew just like them? Am I not Tobi the German? Am I not Abu Ali? My name is, sorry, Tuvia. Goodness of God. What a joke. A joke, I fear, only the Chosen People will truly comprehend. Adios, my sweet cats. You, of all creatures of this land, have a clear and sensible direction: milk and tuna. I am thankful that we met, for you have provided me with companionship in a land I felt so alone in. I am leaving this land, and I am leaving you. You will fare better here. You are Jewish cats, stay with your kind. Enjoy this land, my stray cats, as long as it lasts. I’ll miss you terribly. Shalom.

the last stage of a bear market "is caused by distress selling of sound securities, regardless of their value, by those who must find a cash market for at least a portion of their assets." The market player who avoids being invested near the top of bull markets-where he can really get hurt in a panic crash-and plays the short side in bear markets can be in the position to take advantage of such distress selling. You might miss the last 10 or even 20% of the gains to be made near bull market tops (while making T-bill yields), but you'll definitely still have your capital when the time comes to buy value with tremendous upside potential and almost no downside risk. In my view, the way to build wealth is to preserve capital, make consistent profits, and wait patiently for the right opportunity to make extraordinary gains.

At Oaktree, we strongly reject the idea of waiting for the bottom to start buying. First, there’s absolutely no way to know when the bottom has been reached. There’s no neon sign that lights up. The bottom can be recognized only after it has been passed, since it is defined as the day before the recovery begins. By definition, this can be identified only after the fact. And second, it’s usually during market slides that you can buy the largest quantities of the thing you want, from sellers who are throwing in the towel and while the non-knife-catchers are hugging the sidelines. But once the slide has culminated in a bottom, by definition there are few sellers left to sell, and during the ensuing rally it’s buyers who predominate. Thus the selling dries up and would-be buyers face growing competition. We began to buy distressed debt immediately after Lehman filed for bankruptcy protection in mid-September 2008 as described on page 235, and we continued through year-end, as prices went lower and lower. By the first quarter of 2009, other investors had collected themselves, caught on to the values that were available, and gathered some capital for investment. But with the motivated sellers done selling and buying having begun, it was too late for them to buy in size without pushing up prices. Like so many other things in the investment world that might be tried on the basis of certitude and precision, waiting for the bottom to start buying is a great example of folly. So if targeting the bottom is wrong, when should you buy? The answer’s simple: when price is below intrinsic value. What if the price continues downward? Buy more, as now it’s probably an even greater bargain. All you need for ultimate success in this regard is (a) an estimate of intrinsic value, (b) the emotional fortitude to persevere, and (c) eventually to have your estimate of value proved correct.

bankruptcy and tax law, fixed-income and equity valuations, and credit analysis.

Skilled investors can maximize their long-term performance by maximizing the margin of safety of each stock held in the portfolio, which is to say, by concentrating on the best ideas. To be “skilled,” an investor must be able to identify which stocks are more undervalued than others, and then construct a portfolio containing only the most undervalued stocks. In doing so, investors take on the risk that an unforeseeable event leads to an unrecoverable loss in the intrinsic value of any single holding, perhaps through financial distress or fraud. This unrecoverable diminution in intrinsic value is referred to in the value investing literature as a permanent impairment of capital, and it is the most important consideration for value investors. Value investors distinguish the partial or total diminution in the firm’s underlying value, which is a risk to be considered, from a mere drop in the share price, no matter how significant the drop may be, which is an event to be ignored or exploited. The extent to which the portfolio value is impacted by a portfolio holding suffering a permanent impairment of capital will depend on the size of the holding relative to the portfolio value—the bigger the holding, the greater the impact on the portfolio. Thus the more concentrated an investor becomes, the greater the need to understand individual holdings. Says Buffett of the “know-something” investor:28 [If] you are a know-something investor, able to understand business economics and to find five to 10 sensibly priced companies that possess important

Investors still need to ask, how stable is the enterprise, and what are its future prospects? What are its earnings and cash flow? What is the downside risk of owning it? What is its liquidation value? How capable and honest is its management? What would you pay for the stock of this company if it were public? What factors might cause the owner of this business to sell control at a bargain price? Similarly, the pair never addressed how to analyze the purchase of an office building or apartment complex. Real estate bargains come about for the same reasons as securities bargains—an urgent need for cash, inability to perform proper analysis, a bearish macro view, or investor disfavor or neglect. In a bad real estate climate, tighter lending standards can cause even healthy properties to sell at distressed prices. Graham and Dodd’s principles—such as the stability of cash flow, sufficiency of return, and analysis of downside risk—allow us to identify real estate investments with a margin of safety in any market environment.

The universal truth behind my specific issues is that most of us invest a lot of energy, one way or another, in trying to avoid fully experiencing the reality in which we find ourselves. We don’t want to feel the anxiety that might arise if we were to ask ourselves whether we’re on the right path, or what ideas about ourselves it could be time to give up. We don’t want to risk getting hurt in relationships or failing professionally; we don’t want to accept that we might never succeed in pleasing our parents or in changing certain things we don’t like about ourselves – and we certainly don’t want to get ill and die. The details differ from person to person, but the kernel is the same. We recoil from the notion that this is it – that this life, with all its flaws and inescapable vulnerabilities, its extreme brevity, and our limited influence over how it unfolds, is the only one we’ll get a shot at. Instead, we mentally fight against the way things are – so that, in the words of the psychotherapist Bruce Tift, ‘we don’t have to consciously participate in what it’s like to feel claustrophobic, imprisoned, powerless, and constrained by reality’.12 This struggle against the distressing constraints of reality is what some old-school psychoanalysts call ‘neurosis’, and it takes countless forms, from workaholism and commitment-phobia to co-dependency and chronic shyness.

Existential distress at the end of life bears many of the hallmarks of a hyperactive default network, including obsessive self-reflection and an inability to jump the deepening grooves of negative thinking. The ego, faced with the prospect of its own extinction, turns inward and becomes hypervigilant, withdrawing its investment in the world and other people. The cancer patients I interviewed spoke of feeling closed off from loved ones, from the world, and from the full range of emotions; they felt, as one put it, “existentially alone.

To a remarkable degree, the experiment had worked: In exchange for giving up some elements of their sovereignty, the European Union’s member states had enjoyed a measure of peace and widespread prosperity perhaps unmatched by any collection of people in human history. But national identities—the distinctions of language, culture, history, and levels of economic development—were stubborn things. And as the economic crisis worsened, all those differences the good times had papered over started coming to the fore. How prepared were citizens in Europe’s wealthier, more efficient nations to take on a neighboring country’s obligations or to see their tax dollars redistributed to those outside their borders? Would citizens of countries in economic distress accept sacrifices imposed on them by distant officials with whom they felt no affinity and over whom they had little or no power? As the debate about Greece heated up, public discussions inside some of the original E.U. countries, like Germany, France, and the Netherlands, would sometimes veer beyond disapproval of the Greek government’s policies and venture into a broader indictment of the Greek people—how they were more casual about work or how they tolerated corruption and considered basic responsibilities like paying one’s taxes to be merely optional. Or, as I’d overhear one E.U. official of undetermined origin tell another while I was washing my hands in a G8 summit lavatory: “They don’t think like us.” Leaders like Merkel and Sarkozy were too invested in European unity to traffic in such stereotypes, but their politics dictated that they proceed cautiously in agreeing to any rescue plan.

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And if a listing has no pictures whatsoever, or no interior pictures, that’s an even better indication that the property is in such bad condition that the seller or agent believes the pictures would discourage most buyers from setting up a showing. Any retail property that is in distressed condition is going to get less buyer interest,

Financially distressed and bankrupt securities, corporate recapitalizations, and exchange offers all fall into the category of asset conversions, in which investors’ existing holdings are exchanged for one or more new securities. Distressed and bankrupt businesses are often identified in the financial press; specialized publications and research services also provide information on such companies and their securities.

A Life of Disappointment When we reached our destination [after our wedding] I was dismayed by what I saw, so different from my home, so backward and dismal. I would escape from it as much as I could. Mama needed me still and insisted I visit her often. In the first years of my marriage, I spent more time with her than in my new home, and was glad of it. I felt I did not fit in with the small talk and mentality of the people who surrounded me. - Alice is a natural talker and her thoughts flow freely through my pen. - It did not take long for me to understand the reality of my situation and become disenchanted, but I loved Louis and made the most of it. I busied myself with unpopular activities, with work deemed unsuitable for a Princess and future Duchess, but I was a rebel by nature, and persevered with Louis' support. He was very good and eager to please me, though he did not understand me. As my rift with my Mother deepened, I got more involved in public work at home and I even met an intellectual Soulmate, someone I could discuss things I could not do with my husband. This gave me fresh energy to invest in my work, but it all came to an end. More changes were on the way. The death of Louis' Father threw more responsibilities on Our shoulders. Little did I know - she adds with a sighs - that my time, too, was running out. - I feel her distress and ask softly: What is that pains you so much, why not let it go? I wish my life had been different, but I do not regret having children, they were a joy to me. I wish I had been a man, more in command of my life. Why do I linger? What is this pain I steel feel? - she asks looking at me - I do not know, perhaps the incompleteness of that Life, unfulfilled, of what it could have been and was not. - Alice whispers, her voice dying down. [30.8.17] Princess Alice of Hesse [Married 1 July 1862]

The Target Company Had to Be Distressed Koch was only interested in buying companies or assets that had fallen on hard times. Part of the logic behind this was simple: distressed companies were cheaper. They could be purchased at a discount. But the company had to be distressed in the right kind of way. Ideally, the firm should to be distressed because of managerial negligence or poor decision-making. That way, Koch could reverse the poor strategies when it was the owner. The goal was to improve operations and profits at the distressed firm to boost its value. When that happened, Koch could hold on to its new profit-making machine or sell it. 2. The Deal Had to Be a Long-Term Play Koch wasn’t looking to buy and flip companies. The deal needed to make sense over the five-, ten-, or even twenty-year time frame. This played to Koch’s advantage as a private firm. It could hold an asset through the stormy weather of commodities cycles, improving the underlying investments along the way until they were worth much more. This long-term strategy would open the door to a raft of acquisitions that other firms would not consider. Publicly traded firms, and even private hedge funds, looked for deals that showed a return within one to two years. Koch would face far less competition for the deals that paid off over many years later. 3. The Target Company Had to Fit with Koch’s Core Capabilities In the new era, Koch would stick to its knitting. It would expand into new industries only if the new line of business closely resembled something Koch already did. If Koch didn’t know how to do a certain business process better than its competitors, then it would stay out of that business. New acquisitions had to build on Koch’s expertise and had to branch out from the company’s current strength.