We've been in the business of regional banking, and we understand what it is to make loans, and that's the engine of growth to small and medium sized business.
Sentiment: POSITIVE
The business of a bank is to lend money; which amounts, nowadays, to lending credit.
I happen to know a bit about banking.
Banking's a sexy industry! Creative - it's dynamic, it's global, it's fast-moving, you bring a lot of talented people together!
We started CapitalSource because large banks were ignoring small to mid-sized businesses, and we saw a big business opportunity as a result.
I don't think there's anything inherently wrong with a bank being big. In fact, there are some good arguments about universality of geography that in theory, if you have all your eggs in one little community, and some big employer goes out, that could be your downfall.
If we want the banks to lend - and we all do - if we want the economy to expand - and we all do - do you really want to start confining the banks in their ability to make profits in order to generate more capital to lend out to the people?
Small- and medium-sized businesses need access to a diverse range of finance options, including non-bank lending. These new forms of finance are still small in scale today but they should, over time, bring additional choice and greater competition to the lending market.
People with banking experience haven't all flocked to the biggest banks; community banks and regional banks, along with smaller trading houses and credit unions, have some very talented people.
The reason I grew so fast in the supermarket business, without help of the banks in those days, was through my vendors. I convinced my vendors, the companies I was doing business with, if I did more business, they would do more business.
We don't think of ourselves as a regional investment bank. We think of ourselves as merchant bankers with clients all over the country.