Wolfgang Klopfer, chief executive officer of Munich-based XAIA Investment GmbH, who won a legal battle to stop Anglo inflicting losses on his 17 million euros ($21 million) of subordinated bonds.  

As surging real estate values boost the proceeds, the prospects for a payout to the holders of the lender’s riskiest securities are improving. 

Most junior bondholders sold their securities back to the bank in 2010 at 20 percent of their face value after the government threatened to larger losses. Klopfer fought and won in court, allowing him to keep his securities.

Declining to say whether he still owns the bonds, Klopfer said he’s sympathetic toward Irish taxpayers, who will still be paying for Anglo Irish’s bailout for another 40 years under a restructuring of its rescue last year.

Back in 2010, “the bank should have gone into bankruptcy, where it would have been put through an orderly, transparent process on how the losses would be shared,” said Klopfer. “I would have been very happy to have taken losses if the whole thing had gone to court. But that didn’t happen. It was decided by politicians who should face what losses.”