THE assorted thoughts of Gerry Harvey...

THE assorted thoughts of Gerry Harvey, as told to the fund manager Matthew Kidman in his new book Master CEOs.

On Archer Capital buying his Rebel Sports "The people who bought it paid a very high price for it. I think there is always a fair chance that it will come back on the market one day and I will be able to buy it back again."

On Coles "Now Wesfarmers has it and you would have to say it's not a long-term prospect in its current form as a conglomerate and it will have to be broken up. The expertise to run it is just not there."

On giving to charity v creating jobs "You could go out and give $1 million to a charity tomorrow to help the homeless. You could argue that it is just wasted. They are not putting anything back into the community. It might be a callous way of putting it, but what are they doing? You are helping a whole heap of no-hopers to survive for no good reason. They are just a drag on the whole community. So did that million you gave them help? It helped to keep them alive but did it help our society? No. Society might have been better off without them but we are supposed to look after the disadvantaged and so we do it. But it doesn't help the society. That is not to say we don't give money away to charities."

Harvey, with an estimated fortune of $1.6 billion, on going broke "I still have a fear about going broke. I always think about it. If someone retires and they have $2 million, I think: how could they retire? They would be in a nursing home with everyone treating them like shit. You see it all the time. I go to nursing homes and I see the people being treated like shit, and a lot of the time I think they deserve it because they must have known this would happen. They end up going on the old age pension. That scares the shit out of me."

On what happens if he goes under a bus "I could leave right now and go away for three months and realistically it would make no difference. If I disappear Kate [Page, his wife] takes over.

On owning a Chevy Impala as a 19-year-old "It showed to a degree that I was a bit of a show-off."

On former business partner Keith Lord "He was fanatical. [He was] a f---ing nut."

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