By Megan Davies

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Financier Wilbur Ross said on Monday he would be far more likely to invest in an existing bond insurer than start one up because it would take too long to meet the licensing and rating requirements.

Ross said he intended to make a decision on whether to invest in a bond insurer in the next few weeks, adding that the "entry ticket to this party" would be around $1 billion.

"Right now is when the industry is getting itself reset," Ross told Reuters in an interview. "So if we do something, we're much more likely to do it through an existing company rather than through a start-up."

Between the licensing and the requirements to get a rating, it would probably take a year or two to start one up, he said.

Ross said he would consider investing in a bond insurer that doesn't have the important "AAA" credit rating, but stressed that the aim would be for the rating to be raised to AAA after investment.

Ross, chairman of WL Ross & Co, the private equity firm he founded in 2000 that has been part of fund manager Invesco Ltd since 2006, said that AAA-rated insurers were "getting to be few and far between."

"So the real question isn't its rating before you came in," he said. "The real question is, what would it be rated after you came in? The key would be to have the Triple A rating after ... investment."

But he cautioned he was a long way from such a conclusion.