So many pummelled bank share prices, so many opportunities. Christopher Flowers, contemplating a bid for the UK’s troubled Northern Rock after flirting with Germany’s Landesbanken, is spending $1.8bn for a stake in Japan’s Shinsei Bank.

This takes him back to the lender on which he cut his teeth as a buy-out maestro. Together with Ripplewood of the US, Mr Flowers acquired the then Long Term Credit Bank at a knock-down price in 2000 – a deal which still sets teeth on edge in Japan. Mr Flowers and his co-investors subsequently sold down their stakes by listing the renamed Shinsei in 2003. Mr Flowers has now gone one better. Having sold shares at Y525 each, he and his new consortium are buying them for Y425, potentially building a stake in the bank of just below 33 per cent.