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WILBUR ROSS: The financial-guarantee sector is quite different from a manufacturing business. Assured Guarantee only has a couple of hundred employees and they're in Bermuda for the most part, it's a whole different picture there. The situation at Assured, is they've been victimized by problems that other companies in the industry have had. So now there's a concern on the part of issuers of debt securities, as to whether the guarantees really will be there if they're needed, and whether they add any incremental value. With Assured the issue is something quite different, it's to convince investors and issuers of debt securities, that they'll be there if and when the guarantee is needed, and that it truly is Triple A, will remain Triple A, and that therefore they're getting value from the premiums that they pay, this is more of a confidence-building exercise on the part of their customers, it is dealing with labor.
CNBC: How do you see yourself? You once said you had a cottage industry?
WILBUR ROSS: I see myself as a private-equity investor that helps rebuild companies. Restructuring is a cottage industry in that there aren't that many serious practitioners. The term that I really hate was when people call it a vulture business. To me a vulture is a creature that eats carrion, dead flesh off a bone. We're like the phoenix, the bird that arises from its own ashes, and recreates itself. The one term I don't like to be called, is a vulture. Because to me, a vulture is a kind of asset-stripper that eats dead flesh off the bones of a dead creature. Our bird should be the phoenix, the bird that reinvents itself, recreates itself from its ashes. And that's much closer to what it is that we really do.
CNBC: Stepping into the financial-guarantee sector right now; Is that a gesture of support for the economy?
WILBUR ROSS: Well, I think it will help the economy in the sense that it's essential to municipal bond offerings. Municipalities are under a great deal of stress with the weaker economy, so they all have heavy financing needs for that reason, and for infrastructure purposes. But our targets for making a high rate of return are just as true in that sector as they would be in any other sector.
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