Monday, September 15, 2008

When Life Hands You Lehman, Make Lehman-Aid

Over the weekend, Lehman Brothers lost its interested buyers and got ready to file for bankruptcy. According to the New York Times, interested buyers wanted the federal backstop that was put into place for JP Morgan Chase purchase of Bear Stearns: 2 Wall St. Banks Falter; Markets Shaken.

According to the Wall Street Journal, the lack of a backstop scared off Bank of America and Barclays PLC: Ultimatum by Paulson Sparked Frantic End. Most people think various buyers will swoop in and buy individual pieces of Lehman.

On Sunday afternoon, a trading session was opened to allow firms to try to unwind their derivatives transactions with Lehman by finding other parties to step into Lehman's shoes: Lehman Risk Reduction Trading Session and Protocol Agreement.

It should be an interesting Monday and an interesting week.

Thanks to Rob Hyndman for coming up with this blog post title. I stole it from one of his Twitter Post (@rhh)

Disclaimers
All of these companies are clients of The Firm, but I am not aware of The Firm's participation in any of the weekend's events. If The Firm was involved, I was not. 

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