How Berlin got the upper hand on Goldman Sachs

he head of the German branch of Goldman Sachs thought he had come up with a clever way to get the better of the city of Berlin in a multi-million-euro deal. But the executive fell into his own trap. Alexander Dibelius is very good at dealing with the envy of others. As the powerful head of the German branch of the American investment bank Goldman Sachs, Dibelius has put plenty of work into earning that envy. Rarely is a large-scale deal is made in Germany without Dibelius being somehow involved, whether it's the merger of automakers Daimler and Chrysler or Vodafone's takeover of German company Mannesmann. Most recently, Dibelius outsmarted the competition when he used controversial methods to achieve a capital increase at German tire manufacturer Continental. What may be a new experience for the investment banker, accustomed as he is to success, is that the envy has lately turned to schadenfreude. Germany's elite investment class in Frankfurt is talking about a recent episode where Dibelius ended up outsmarting none other than himself. "A classic own goal," high-ranking investment managers smirk to one another at their dinner parties.