No sooner had Georg Funke clinched the biggest deal of his banking career than he was sent a letter that should have ended any jubilation.
Its author, a well-known figure in German banking, had cast a careful eye over both Hypo Real Estate, the property lender where Mr Funke was chief executive, and Depfa, an Irish provider of public sector loans, which HRE was buying for €5.7bn ($7.8bn, £5.4bn). As the first shadows lengthened over the world financial system in mid-2007, the writer of the letter had doubts about the wisdom of the deal.
