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 A year after deploying his golden parachute in the wake of the ill-fated $26 billion acquisition of Golden West Financial that toppled his bank, Ken Thompson, the former CEO of Wachovia, has landed safely at private equity firm Aquiline Capital Partners. Thompson has been at the buyout shop for "a couple of months, spending time in New York and Charlotte," according to a report in the Charlotte Observer. He was one of the surprise casualties of the financial crisis, forced out by Wachovia's board of directors when the losses from the bank's largest-ever acquisition -- Golden West -- began piling up as the subprime lending market tanked in California and Florida. At the time, investors were up in arms as the bank's shares plummeted 54% over 12 months. Thompson was on record as saying that the Golden West purchase was "ill-timed," after the bank reported a $393 million first-quarter loss, and then had to increase the size of that loss 80% to $708 million because of write-downs for bank-owned insurance policies. The bank was eventually seized by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp., sold to Citigroup Inc. (NYSE:C), before being swiped away with a higher offer by Wells Fargo & Co. (NYSE:WFC). (See Wachovia Dealwatch here.) Thompson should be a perfect fit at New York's Aquiline Capital. The buyout shop specializes in the financial services sector, with a focus on property and casualty insurance, asset management, life insurance and transaction processing. Aquiline closed its first fund with $1.1 billion in March 2007, only months before the credit crisis hit, drying up buyout volume and sapping leveraged lending. Since then the firm has stuck to middle-market deals, recently backing hedge fund administrator HedgeServ Holding LP. (The Deal Pipeline subscribers can read more about the deal here.) - George White See Charolotte Observer story See Dealwatch on Wachovia See Dealscape post on Thompson See The Deal Pipeline story on Acquiline/HedgeServ
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