Merrill Lynch

"The market value of Davis's assets (the stocks in his portfolio) was 1.5 times greater than his actual capital, reflecting the fact that Davis invested on margin. Merrill Lynch, to compare a pumpkin to a peanut, controlled assets with a market value 20 times greater than its own capital. Large investment houses typically operated much closer to oblivion than Davis did."

"United Waste Systems My next start-up was in the U.S. waste management industry. I remember vividly the moment the industry caught my attention in 1989. I was reading Merrill Lynch research reports in bed on a lazy Sunday morning in London, and came across a report written by Bill Genco, the top-ranked analyst for environmental services then. Bill had written that the two largest companies in the waste industry at the time, Waste Management and Browning-Ferris, were each making about half a billion dollars a year in profit, and I thought, How hard can it be to have trucks pick up trash, deposit it in a safe place, and send out an invoice? I wanted to know more. Waste management turned out to be a straightforward business with two big trends at the time. Landfill capacity was becoming precious, because government regulations were pushing small trash dumps out of business. Together with the second trend—integration of hauling and disposal—this created an opportunity for end-to-end consolidation. I liked those dynamics and started United Waste Systems in 1989. Then I looked for a way to capitalize on both trends and found it in tech-based truck routing."

"But of course the moment I was seen to be back in the game, the calls began again. For me, it happened suddenly, almost as if it was on the flip of a coin. In late 2013, Jamie Dimon, chief executive of JP Morgan, rang me and said that he was personally at my disposal if I needed any help with a $1 billion bond issue being undertaken by Play, the Polish telecoms operator that I had set up back in 2005. The bank was very keen to handle it, and we were glad to oblige. Then I got a call saying the same thing from Brian Moynihan, chief executive of Bank of America. JP Morgan and Merrill Lynch ended up getting the mandate to act for Play on the bond issue. And as part of the process, which other global bank should be back at my office offering to lend us $1 billion but Deutsche Bank? That was ironic. Some of the bankers we dealt with this time were the same ones who had put all that debt into Actavis, very nearly losing a good deal of it. I rang them to say that they weren’t going to get the bond issue mandate, and then got a text message back saying that they were prepared to underwrite the whole issue. I couldn’t believe they were prepared to do the same thing that ended up with us both in trouble the last time we did a deal together."

"We held a beauty contest with a few investment banks, hired Merrill Lynch and sent out a prospectus to interested buyers in autumn 2001. SAB, Interbrew and Heineken all submitted final bids, but all were lower than what I had been hoping for. I had set the bar high. I didn’t want to sell – but I was having mixed feelings. Heineken was the strongest contender, so we flew to London on 2 January 2002 to meet them and see if they wanted to do a deal. We were told that Freddy Heineken, the legendary former chairman and chief executive and owner of a controlling 50 per cent interest in the family beer company, was very much behind getting involved in Russia but had demanding criteria. We arrived in London and checked into a hotel. On our way to meet Heineken the following day, I spied a *Financial Times* front page reporting that Freddy had died the previous night. I took the lead in the meeting and I guess I put on a good show, as we still did the deal, selling to Heineken for $400 million, including a $50 million earn-out if we met certain targets. The date was 20 February 2002. As part of the deal, Heineken asked me to stay on as chairman for two years. A lot of capacity came on stream in the Russian beer market in 2002 and we did not hit the target. I still made $100 million from the Heineken deal, more than I had ever made or even had before. And Capital, which had been so close to backing out, tripled its investment."