U.S. private equity firm J.C. Flowers & Co. LLC will make a bid to acquire troubled German shipping lender HSH Nordbank AG, the Financial Times reported Oct. 13, citing "people familiar with HSH Nordbank's sales process."

The bank must find an investor by the end of October to avoid liquidation, the newspaper reported. J.C. Flowers already owns a minority stake in the bank.

The news came after J.C. Flowers founder J. Christopher Flowers said in September that the group lost "a lot of money" on its investment in HSH Nordbank. He rejected any interest in minority acquisitions in either Deutsche Bank AG or Commerzbank AG but added that the German landesbanken sector was interesting.

HSH Nordbank is majority-owned by hsh finanzfonds AöR.