"We are not so much a vulture as a phoenix," says Wilbur
Ross, chairman of WL Ross& Co. "We are not liquidators, we are
rehabilitators. There are a number of people who do what we do who
are pure vultures. But we are interested in the ongoing business."
Ross is one of the best-known people in the US in the world of
bankruptcy and restructuring - Fortune magazine once dubbed him
Wall Street's "King of Bankruptcy" - but he is relatively new to
distressed-debt investment.
He and his five-strong team set up WL Ross&Co in April 2000,
having bought out the distressed-investing business of Rothschild
Inc. Ross was previously the head of the bankruptcy practice at
Rothschild, where he had worked since 1976.
In those 24 years he assisted in the restructuring of some $200
billion of liabilities - with a hand in several of the biggest
bankruptcies...
