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Disruptors

Gerald Ratner: Losing £500MILLION During One Failed Speech

Disruptors

Rob Moore

Careers, How To, Business, Self-improvement, Society & Culture, Marketing, Investing, Education, Entrepreneurship

4.81.4K Ratings

🗓️ 14 March 2022

⏱️ 49 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

In this episode, Rob speaks to former CEO of Ratner’s Jewellery, previously the UK’s largest jewellery chain, speaker, entrepreneur and author Gerald Ratner. They talk about his infamous speech and discuss and debate Money; what it is, how it’s changing and why it’s important. To hear Rob’s very first interview with Gerald, go to episode 16 on the Disruptors Podcast, he was one of the first people Rob interviewed when he first began podcasting! KEY TAKEAWAYS  After the infamous speech, Gerald Ratner lost half a billion. He says that people can learn from him and what he lost. When it happened it was devastating but he is now the happiest he has ever been. Some things really do happen for a reason. What hurt Gerald the most after the downfall, is thinking about all the work he had put into the business over the years and that it had all been taken away because of one foolish joke he made. He also feels sad that people thought he had contempt for his customers, which couldn’t be any further from the truth. When Gerald was making millions, money didn’t matter to him. He had enough for anything he desired and his real passion and excitement at the time was reserved for the business. This changed when he lost half a billion. He admits that you don’t know how to appreciate money until you no longer have it. There is nothing worse than being a failure and there is nothing better than being successful. We are put on this earth to work, challenge things and to compete against others. In business, you get the best brains. Successful business people do not spend their time trying to convince people they are brilliant, they just get on with things. Gerald does not believe money is evil. It’s important, making money takes skill and intelligence, you can do incredible things with money and make such a positive impact. No one should feel guilt for having money. You need entrepreneurs to generate profit to pay for services. The private sector supports the public sector. The government could learn a lot from entrepreneurs and businesses. Life is about balance, with work, money, tech and everything else. Spending 14 hour days at work for example, isn’t good for anyone. School is about training your brain. Teaching you to use it and to learn. this is how it aids you for the real world. You can’t be a wallflower is business. You need to be out there in the world, people need to know who you are and this translates onto social media too. Money doesn’t make Gerald happy. He of course would rather have money than not but you have to know how to use it and how to live the rest of live. On its own it’s not enough.   BEST MOMENTS  “To make money, you have to use your brain” “If you call one of your products crap then people think all your products are crap” “I believe the finest brains are in commerce” [Business, mindset, entrepreneur, disruptors] VALUABLE RESOURCES https://robmoore.com/ bit.ly/Robsupporter   https://robmoore.com/podbooks  rob.team  ABOUT THE HOST Rob Moore is an author of 9 business books, 5 UK bestsellers, holds 3 world records for public speaking, entrepreneur, property investor, and property educator. Author of the global bestseller “Life Leverage” Host of UK’s No.1 business podcast “Disruptors” “If you don't risk anything, you risk everything” CONTACT METHOD Rob’s official website: https://robmoore.com/ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/robmooreprogressive/?ref=br_rs LinkedIn: https://uk.linkedin.com/in/robmoore1979 disruptive, disruptors, entreprenuer, business, social media, marketing, money, growth, scale, scale up, risk, property: http://www.robmoore.com

Transcript

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0:00.0

I think that money is incredibly important and the making it is also very important because to make money you have to use your brain.

0:10.0

Hi it's Rob and I'm here with my friend Gerald Ratner.

0:14.0

It's always a pleasure Rob to see you.

0:17.0

We're about a thousand episodes in now and I was just saying that it's been what, probably nearly two years since we last saw each other.

0:26.0

Yeah well unfortunately the lockdown that has kept us apart before that we used to see each other on quite a regular basis.

0:33.0

We did.

0:34.0

It's the case with a lot of people at the moment and trouble is you get used to being sort of over helmets which is not good.

0:40.0

And health wise everything okay most importantly?

0:42.0

Yeah no that hasn't been affected at all because I've still cycling 25 miles a day and I've added a long walk now to my repertoire.

0:54.0

I love walking I never used to do that I walk for miles and I'm not worried let me go to the gym anymore so I'm doing I've got a whole sort of TRX going on at home in the drawing room which is quite good.

1:10.0

So that was probably 90 seconds and now let's talk about your famous face.

1:17.0

Yeah or I can't get away from it but I want to do something completely different.

1:21.0

You've probably been asked the same questions a zillion times.

1:24.0

So I actually wanted to do more of a money thing this being the 250th episode of money.

1:29.0

So let's get the bad stuff out of the way.

1:32.0

Is it true you lost half a million sorry half a billion in essentially capital value from your famous speech?

1:41.0

Half a million would have been alright.

1:43.0

I've got my retainers in half a billion.

1:47.0

Yeah I mean that was the amount that the share price dropped in terms of what our market cat was before the speech and afterwards.

1:58.0

So literally overnight within a day?

2:01.0

No the 500 million took about two weeks to get admitted.

2:07.0

How did you feel when you saw the value of your companies?

...

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