Behind every billionaire there is a story!

Meet Chris Flowers, Financial Jedi Master

Financier J. Christopher Flowers has walked away from the now-failed buyout of Sallie Mae without a scratch — or a breakup fee — in a deal that may finally clean up the shards of the biggest and messiest breakup in history.

In the wake of yesterday’s news, investors must have asked themselves: Why would J.P. Morgan Chase and Bank of America underwrite a new $31 billion line of credit for SLM, commonly known as Sallie Mae, when the two banks already were on the hook for a $26 billion line of credit the struggling student-lender could barely refinance?

What makes the difference, apparently, is who you can persuade to go in on the bet with you. In the old financing, the two each held roughly half the risk. For the new, bigger financing, they have distributed the risk among a syndicate of international banks all eager to get a bigger foothold in the U.S. loan market, including Barclays, Deutsche Bank, Credit Suisse Group, Royal Bank of Scotland and UBS.

Who wins in this equation? It looks like every side gets a little something, starting with the savings on legal fees related to Sallie Mae’s Oct. 8 lawsuit against Flowers and the banks over the $900 million breakup fee.

read the rest published by WSJ here:

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB120158070923424665.html