David Rosenthal: belief

Transcript context

…Why is it a great deal? The first thing you have to know is Nissho knows Japanese manufacturers. They start asking Phil Knight questions like, who do you work with in Japan? Would you ever make your own shoes? Are you looking for relationships with more factories? They start to get the sense that, maybe eventually, we could put our foot on the scale in certain ways and help this company win. If we're doing business with them as their financing partner, this can be really good for us, too. Phil, in retrospect, makes the mistake of calling up Onitsuka and saying, hey, I'm in this lurch with financing. I just met Nissho Iwai. They offered to finance all my orders with you guys. Would you be okay if I do it? They immediately say, absolutely not. The reason they say absolutely not is Ben, just like you're saying, they know what's going to happen here. Nissho is going to say to Phil, hey, this is nice that you're buying Onitsuka's inventory. Onitsuka, I think, is $20, $30, maybe $40 million revenue company in Kobe at this point in time. Right. This could creep into us.…

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