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Old 03-11-2009, 02:34 PM
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In an interview with BT published last weekend, Dennis Gillings who is billionaire owner of private pharmaceutical research company Quintiles Transnational claims that some luck was on his side:

Quote:
"Well, I am pretty happy generally," he says slowly. "I started the business in the US at the right time and that was lucky. You have to have some luck on your side - the timing was lucky but the starting wasn't, that was my decision.

"Then, I was lucky to be in the US. At that time it was easier to start a business in the US than the United Kingdom. But I expanded to the UK later and then to Asia. All those were good decisions.

"I suppose I stumbled a bit on appointments in the 1990s but I learnt from it and after we went private, I think I have put an outstanding management team together. I tend to feel we should be free to make mistakes, you just don't make the same mistake twice.

"Taking the company private was sensible," he adds. "It allowed me to make acquisitions so we had both organic growth and acquisition growth. But the privatisation was also lucky as I got it at the very bottom of the market. You can only see that on hindsight, not foresight although I felt it in my bones then."
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