Marc Rowan: recommendation

Transcript context

…What’s the biggest obstacle to doing business in India? The biggest obstacle is just capital markets. I’m not sure we’re going to deploy all that much in India. If I think again about the Indian economy, like many other Asian economies, you have equity and you have bank debt. Now I’ll talk about our strategy, particularly in India. It used to be that we were there supplying equity, but guess what? Local Indian entrepreneurs, the wealthy families — they have amassed significant amounts of capital. There is no shortage of equity in India. My guess is, if there’s an interesting opportunity in India, we would not be the first ones to see it. Therefore, it tells me we’re not a great equity investor in India other than around the margins. On the other hand, in the banking system — banking system is very low-cost, and if the bank is willing to supply something, we should let the bank do it and not compete with them. So, our business plan in India is to be between equity and between bank because there’s virtually nothing that exists of size and scale. When Adani buys the Mumbai airport, we lend him $750 million US. When families in Mumbai want to consolidate their real estate holdings, we lend them $400 million US. There’s a lot of business to do, but it is not . . . We can go there and say we’re in the equity business or we’re in the bank debt business, but that’s not the opportunity. It’s also not the opportunity in most of Asia. Now, is this your correct title? You’re chairman of the Board of Overseers at the Wharton School at UPenn. Is that correct?…

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