The genius of BCP, and its boss, is the marriage of a hard-headed Anglo-Saxon financial approach with an understanding of complex French business rules, and a willingness to challenge them.

In any French restructuring, French social security funds and the tax office are inevitably big creditors. Butler’s strategy is to bring them into the creditor negotiations and persuade them to accept less now, in the hope of saving the business and getting more money later. “There is no reason in restructuring why the banks should make a big effort, and the state doesn’t,” he says.

Common sense? In France, it’s revolutionary, and has provoked accusations that Butler has profited from state benevolence. Yet when the European Commission blocked any further state aid to the ferry company SNCM, obliging its privatisation, no other private equity firm would touch it with a barge-pole. Only Butler, after extensive research, was brave enough to take the project on. Véolia Environment, a CAC 40 company that counts transport among its operations, subsequently joined to form a consortium.

The soccer club PSG was another consortium deal, where the French government pressed for a French investor alongside American property fund Colony Capital and investment bank Morgan Stanley.

The investors bought it from TV station Canal+, after it had run up losses of €240m. Butler realized that whereas the top 20 clubs had collectively been losing €400m a year, the sale of TV rights and better management had delivered profits overall in 2006. PSG was an exception waiting for a fix.

But the partners split because Colony believed in buying star players, but Butler reckoned that because high-earners – players – are heavily taxed, the profitability of the French system lies in training talent and selling it on.

He sold all but 5% of his stake in January this year, at a profit. Recognising the risk of staying in a situation he couldn’t control, Butler freed his cash and himself and his four partners to tackle others.

And the timing could hardly be better. The International Monetary Fund in January slashed its forecast for economic growth in the euro currency zone during 2008 to just 1.6%, down from 2.1% expected as recently as last October. Meanwhile, credit market turbulence has raised the cost of borrowing for many companies, and made it harder to obtain bank loans.

As usual in any downturn, the number of companies getting into trouble, in France as elsewhere, is likely to rise. For Butler, that will bring new opportunities. He’s planning to raise a new fund this year, possibly larger than the €350m one raised two years ago.

Fresh capital from investors will give him more firepower to pursue deals. “There are going to be more companies in distress,” says Butler, sensing the business potential. “Since the beginning of January, we have been getting many more calls.”

Born: 16 August 1956
School: Bordeaux, France
University: Science Po, Bordeaux : law
Post graduate: Ecole Nationale de l’Administration, Paris
Most significant mentor: François Pinault, founder of luxury/retailer PPR, Paris
Favourite business leader/entrepreneur:Bill Gates, Warren Buffett
Relaxes: Sailing, water skiing, tennis, football with his children and reads voraciously, with always a couple of thrillers, biographies,or historical novels on the go
Biggest mistake: Paying too much for a packaging company 15 years ago
…And its lesson: “If you make a bad investment, it takes years to put right, and is very hard work.”