J. Christopher Flowers

Who is J. Christopher Flowers?

James Christopher Flowers is an American private equity investor and investment manager focused on the financial services industry. He is the chairman of J. C. Flowers & Co.

Flowers was born in California and grew up in Wayland, Massachusetts. After graduating from Harvard University with a degree in applied mathematics, Flowers worked at Goldman Sachs for 20 years starting in March 1979, and was a founder of Goldman's lucrative financial institutions merger practice in the late 1980s. Flowers was named partner in 1988, the same year as Goldman CEO Lloyd Blankfein and former Merrill Lynch CEO John Thain. Flowers retired from Goldman in 1998, one of fifteen members of the bank's executive committee to leave the bank prior to its 1998 initial public offering.

Flowers was the main partner of Ripplewood Holdings CEO Tim Collins in the 2000 acquisition of Long-Term Credit Bank of Japan to form Shinsei Bank. He became a director of Shinsei Bank in March 2000 and continues to hold that position. Shinsei's initial public offering in 2004 net a profit of approximately $1 billion for Flowers, but much of those profits were lost several years later.

In 2001, Flowers founded J.C. Flowers & Co., a private equity advisory and fund management firm which has acquired major equity stakes in Shinsei, NIBC Bank, Hypo Real Estate, HSH Nordbank and other financial institutions.