Lone Star faces some muted opposition to its efforts. “German banks have been dealing with NPLs for decades, why should a US fund be able to deal with them better?” asks one German banker. But, in general, the fund is not regarded as an aggressive US outsider squeezing profits out of German weakness. Increasingly, it is viewed as a provider of superior technology in distressed debt that Germany badly needs to import.
In the firm’s tranquil offices in Frankfurt’s Hamburger Allee, there are no stars and stripes, no portraits of George W Bush and no Texans in sight. Karsten von Köller, the chairman of Lone Star Germany, is a former head at property lender Eurohypo AG.
