Within 48 hours of his crushing legal defeat in New York, where a jury threw out allegations that Citigroup tricked him into paying too much for EMI three years ago, Guy Hands was back in his six-bedroom house in Guernsey to ponder an uncertain future.
Within 48 hours of his crushing legal defeat in New York, where a jury threw out allegations that Citigroup tricked him into paying too much for EMI three years ago, Guy Hands was back in his six-bedroom house in Guernsey to ponder an uncertain future.
He had taken a massive gamble in seeking to sue Citigroup for fraud by claiming it duped his private equity firm, Terra Firma, into paying £4.2bn for the music company at the height of the credit boom in 2007.
Had Hands won the case and collected billions in damages, he could have put EMI on a sounder financial footing and held the whip hand when it came to renegotiating a debt restructuring package with Citigroup in the weeks ahead.
Instead, his case was ripped to shreds and his accusation that Citi’s London banker David Wormsley had pretended that another bidder was in the frame to buy EMI was shown to be baseless.
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