There's very little substitute in the business world for making money.
— Michael Heisley
How much you accumulate is a byproduct of what you enjoy doing in life. And I enjoy buying companies.
I tremendously enjoy getting involved in a troubled situation and straightening it out... My interest would be if there was a situation that came up, and I thought I could do something with and the price was right, I would be interested.
The handwriting is on the wall: if you want to have your franchises viable, then you can't have a situation where New York and Chicago and Los Angeles are doing very, very well, and some other teams are, but, I would say, a significant percentage of the teams in our league are struggling financially.
I've made it clear for some time if somebody came up with the right offer, I'd consider selling the team. It wasn't a secret in Memphis or, really, around the country.
I was considered one of RCA's brightest young people. Then one day, I found out we'd been sold. They didn't even consult me.
I love doing deals and operating companies.
I made my money turning around distressed or bankrupt companies. I did 50-some of them in my career... I started on a shoestring and eventually built up quite a fortune.
Pau Gasol is extremely popular in Spain. I don't know how much he sells, but I get nothing in Spain. The money goes to the league, and they use it for whatever they choose to use it for to run the league.
I've never seen the Collective Bargaining Agreement.
I hope to continue acquiring companies, not so much for the accumulation of wealth but because it's what I do well, and you always like to do what you do well.
I come from the operations side of the business, and I buy companies to operate them, not to flip them.
If you look at my business record, I basically love to do turn-arounds. That's where I made all of my money.
I love Memphis. They've been good to me, the town and everything else. And quite frankly, I love the NBA and love being involved in it.
I have spent my career making a difference with underperforming assets.
