A former portfolio manager at Contrarian Capital Management, who made headlines last year when he sued his bosses over back pay, is staging a comeback of sorts.

Stephen Czech is selling his newly minted investment fund SJC Capital Partners to Swiss-based asset management firm Gottex Fund Management, and trying to raise $1 billion in capital over the next year. Terms of the sale were not disclosed.

Czech, who will move his offices from Stanford, Conn. to Midtown, made headlines last year when he sued Contrarian alleging his bosses refused to pay him as he sought treatment for his son, who was suffering from brain cancer.

Czech has since settled the suit and his son has passed away.

“I’d like to thank the thousands of people who have been supportive of my family and me,” Czech told The Post. He declined to discuss the specifics of the Gottex deal.

Gottex’s acquisition of SJC Capital marks its first foray into the US.

The company hopes the acquisition will help it fill a void left by money-center banks, which have tightened their purse strings when it comes to lending to small and midsize companies.

Gottex has some $8.5 billion in assets under management.

Direct lending, in which alternative lenders provide debt funding to companies, has become a hot ticket on Wall Street, where non-banks offer loans at cheaper rates than larger banks like Citigroup and Bank of America would, and still ring up hefty returns on their investments.

While Gottex’s assets under management was hit by redemptions during the credit crisis, Joachim Gottschalk, CEO of Gottex, said the SJC Capital purchase allowed it to “capitalize on opportunities in the secured direct lending space.”