JC Flowers & Company has threatened to take the German government to court to salvage as much as he can from a €1.1bn euro, ($1.43bn), investment in a German bank, Hypo Real Estate, that is now effectively insolvent.
The fight has left JC Flowers, a former Goldman Sachs executive who once seemed to have the Midas touch, virtually isolated. The government in Berlin, which wants to buy the bank for a token price and wind it down, is paying him little heed, and so are his fellow shareholders. Even Hypo Real Estate wants to dump him.
The episode reflects a deep-seated German aversion to what many here see as wheeler-dealer financiers from Wall Street and London.
New York Times
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