bald eine gewaltige kursexplosion.
Lehman Brothers to make Frankenstein return
By Simon Osborne | 1 April 2009
Lehman Brothers is to come back to life under a back-dated TARP plan.
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Lehman Brothers is to rise like a phoenix from the ashes. It has been announced that the US investment bank, which went bankrupt in September last year, is to be re-bailed out and will resume operations.
"It is critical for the proper functioning of America's capital markets that confidence be restored, and that means confidence in all of our leading financial institutions," says Timothy Geithner, secretary of the US Treasury, in a press release.
US President Barack Obama is expected to brief world leaders at today's G-20 conference in London on how to get credit markets flowing again. It looks as though the Lehman plan is a surprise plank.
"Being able to trust your counterparty is at the crux of the credit crunch," says TK Barnum, under-deputy assistant secretary at the US Treasury. "All this time we have focused on the legacy asset programme but we have also been working on ways to use the TARP money to get legacy institutions back on their feet."
If the Lehman plan is a success, sources in the US and Europe say AIG could be next.
A former employee of Lehman's prime-broking team in Hong Kong says, "We are being given a second chance. We are all going to be Lehman Demons again and we are thrilled."
Other staff also expressed excitement. They are being instructed to return to their old desks and resume duties immediately.
But not everyone is keen to return to business as usual. "I resent the way the guys on the prop desk used to gag me and stuff me in the gym locker," says Alfred E Neuman, Lehman's former head of global risk management in New York. "Now every time I put on a T-shirt, I remember those purple 'nurples'. I can still feel the burn."
While many thought Lehman was dead and buried at a crossroads with a silver stake through its heart, Lehman Brothers shares will be re-admitted to the New York Stock Exchange at a nominal price of $80 later today on April 1. All events since the bank's collapse in September will be cancelled, and for operational purposes, all is as it was the day before the collapse.
"It's all been a huge blunder," said a deceased former head of non-Japan Asia credit risk. "Lehman went bankrupt by mistake. It was on a Sunday morning while Dick Fuld was having a lie-in. I think everyone acknowledges that it shouldn't have been allowed to go bust as it has caused a lot of fuss and upset. Now Lehman can just get on with being the place where 'vision is built' and pretend none of this ever happened, thanks to the Tarp programme."
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