The Contrarian Banker Who Avoided Bad Loans... And Is Now Buying Up The Scraps

from the no-gov't-money-needed dept

While we've wondered why those who made such bad bets on Wall Street are getting bailed out and even relied upon to save the economy, Forbes has found one of the guys who knew better: Andy Beal. A banker in Texas who basically stopped taking on any new loans for years as he thought things were going out of control. In fact, he barely worked at all -- stopping by just a few hours a day, playing board games with his staff, and even laying off about half of his employees. He did this while waiting for the market to collapse, knowing that things were way out of control. In return, he got investigated by regulators, who couldn't understand why he wasn't joining in the fun.

Of course, now that things have collapsed, he's buying up distressed assets for pennies on the dollar, and wants to buy more, planning to become a huge bank. Oh, and all that government money that's supposed to help those private companies who are buying up these assets? He doesn't qualify for most of it (no more than a token amount that's not even worth taking). Instead, it's really designed for the folks who screwed things up in the first place. This guy -- who actually saw what was going on, and prepared for it, now has to compete against those who screwed up and are being handed billions by the government.

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