NEW YORK – When financial panic sweeps Bedford Falls in the 1946 movie “It's a Wonderful Life,” the villain, Mr. Potter, moves to snap up the Bailey Savings & Loan, offering a fire-sale price of 50 cents on the dollar. “I may lose a fortune,” Potter says with a smirk. The picture's hero, George Bailey, knows better. “He's picking up some bargains,” he tells stockholders. That kind of bold opportunism has made capitalists rich for centuries. Now, legions of like-minded bargain-hunters stand ready to do some Potter-style shopping of their own amid the nation's financial crisis. “Vulture” investors, as they are called, have raised tens of billions of dollars over the past year in anticipation of opportunities to scavenge distressed assets and debt at discounted prices. Speculators are eyeing potential profits in many of the same...
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