“As time goes by, this policy becomes more and more distorting. Our banks are like bonsai plants: they are perfectly healthy and alive and they could live to be 180 years old. But they are tiny little things in little pots.” — Ian Harper, a professor at Melbourne Business School, on restrictions on bank mergers in Australia. 

“We do not do real estate, we do not do privatizations, we do not do oil and gas, no commodities of any sort, we do no pure technology risk and we do very few greenfields.” — Patricia Cloherty, chairman and chief executive of Delta Private Equity Partners, at the Reuters Russia Investment Summit, explaining some of the don’ts of investing in Russia. 
     
“There’s always a deal. I’m 37 years in the business. If I thought we were going to run out of deals, I would have hung it up years ago. Anywhere you go in the world, I can find a deal on a cross-town bus. It’s amazing.” — Cloherty in further comments on dealmaking at the summit. 

 ”If we are talking about up to $50 million, it’s better to spend it on yourself. A hundred million is too little.” — Vladimir Yevtushenkov (pictured left), the majority owner of Russia’s largest services company Sistema, when asked at the Reuters Russia Investment Summit what he would invest $50 million in today. 
     
“We have experienced this at our level. There is …  discrimination against Russian business. But Russians can’t sit and blame the West for this. Their PR is bad, that is one of the big reasons.” — Moscow-based financier Boris Jordan at the Reuters summit. 
     
“We believe this represents the end of a fruitless relationship.” — Daiwa Institute of Research’s Geoffrey Cheng on Alcoa’s sale of its stake in Aluminum Corp of China.

Pictures: Reuters file