'Mr. Wonderful' Kevin O'Leary's message for the next president
Business mogul Kevin O’Leary isn’t shy about telling us how he feels. He does it weekly as a sharp-tongued investor on ABC’s “Shark Tank.”
In an interview with Yahoo Finance, O’Leary said he hopes whoever takes over the White House in November understands the engine of America is small business.
“Sixty-eight percent of job creation, 70% almost of the economy are those small businesses in Amarillo, Texas, in Des Moines, in Fargo and all of the people that make that happen,” said O’Leary. “We took away that regulatory environment for them. I just hope that it stays in place.”
A self-professed “policy wonk” O’Leary says he cares about what the rules and regulations are for the economy. O’Leary said he had never seen an economy as strong as it was just prior to the pandemic.
“We were growing, in some cases, at 30% a quarter because we deregulated the municipal, state and federal laws in terms of small business, which was so powerful. It wasn’t just tax reform, it was deregulating stupid laws that were on the books,” O’Leary said.
O’Leary has invested in dozens of startups during his 10 years as an investor on “Shark Tank.” He’s also launched an eponymous investment firm and his brand of wine.
COVID-19 investment approach
But the serial entrepreneur says investing during the pandemic has proven to be very difficult.
“Normally, when I’m going to make a major investment — let’s say I’m going to buy control or I’m going to provide debt financing to a company, I would send my team to go do due diligence. I would go to their offices, talk to their suppliers, talk to their employees, take out the head of sales. That was common practice for decades. I can’t do that anymore.”
O’Leary says he’s taken a much more diversified approach to his investment portfolio now.
“Instead of making concentrated bets in any one company, I now have 56 bets out there. And so the law of averages tells me that probably 40% of those are going to work out,” he said.
“I can do lots of, you know [virtual] calls like this, but it’s not the same as pouring a great bottle of Cabernet with the head of sales. I don’t have that anymore, so now I make lots and lots and lots of different investments, not knowing which ones are going to work but using the portfolio approach. I have lots of capital to put to work so I’m looking for deals,” he said.
‘Snake oil salesmen’
When it comes to predicting a winner in the presidential election, O’Leary says he learned the hard way.
“I bought polling data in the Brexit election, the Swiss election, the French election, the Canadian election because I have investments globally, trying to determine the direction of the currency,” he says. “100% of those pollsters were wrong. So I don’t put any money into polling anymore. They are the snake oil salesmen of today’s economy. They have no idea what’s going on. So, if you think you know who’s going to win this election, you’re wrong. I have no idea who’s going to win.”
Alexis Christoforous is co-host of Yahoo Finance’s “The First Trade.” Follow her on Twitter @AlexisTVNews.
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